Blank Slate
by ThinkingCAPSLOCK
Summary: They didn't get to make a new universe. But he and Karkat had a chance to rebuild their worlds, and they were going to take it. No matter what happened, or how long it took.
1. Death

This was not at all what had happened when Karkat had finished his session.

Before Karkat was a giant white door; behind him, a mess of bodies. While it thankfully included Bec Noir, it also contained every other person he knew. The kids. The few trolls who had been left for the final fight. Gone in a sea of red and green blood.

The door itself puzzled hm. The kids had fucked up, unable to make their own universe, and now there was this giant white door in front of him. In the middle of the battlefield. Something weird was going on.

Karkat heard something behind him and a scowl crossed his face. It had taken that fucker long enough to revive.

The young troll turned. The blob of blue clothes that was John fucking Egbert was glowing, reviving, and making a gogdamn scene of it. Karkat knew what was going to come when the kid woke up, too. He'd be the one who had to deal with it.

Fuck, the door would have to wait. He made his way towards the boy, avoiding looking at the corpses he was stepping over. He wasn't going to cry.

Karkat stood by John as he sank back to the ground. Those idiotic blue eyes opened, blinked, and then smiled.

"Karkat!" he said cheerfully. He sat up, and his smile instantly changed into a face of horror. "I thought-"

"Everyone fucking died," Karkat snapped. "And you got sucker stabbed near the end. Again. Only a bulgelicking fucknut like you could avoid a heroic death _in the fucking final fight of your game_."

John looked shaken. "But...we were winning. I saved Rose! What happened? This..."

"Yeah, they're all fucking dead and Bec's dead and all we get is a fucking door."

A sob interrupted Karkat's rant, and he noticed John was crying. Fuck, this kid was hopelessly predictable. Probably thought it was his fault or something. That was just complete bullshit.

"You didn't fucking cause this Egbert."

"But I could have stopped it!"

The boy was on his feet, hands clenched into fists. Karkat knew how he felt, because it was the only way you ever felt when everyone you looked after died. Fucking useless. The worst possible leader that could ever exist.

"Did we at least win?"

John's voice was quiet, and instead of waiting for a reply, he knelt beside Jade. He began to shift her body, lying her out and folding her hands on her chest.

"Is this one of those funeral things?" Karkat muttered, but he began to help nonetheless. They moved their friends into a line, doing their best to keep them in a similar position. John placed Strider's broken shades over his eyes, and tried to make Rose's neck look normal. Karkat put Terezi's arms back with the rest of her, and removed the mail flag buried deep in Kanaya's chest.

He made John move Aradia's body into the line, unable to look at her. Of course she had gotten her fucking heroic death saving his life. Of course she had died looking after him again. He was such a fucking useless moron.

The blood was making him extremely uneasy, though he was aware his blood couldn't be seen compared to the kids'. He hadn't even noticed before that moment he was crying, and wiped at his face angrily. John walked over beside him, not looking much better.

"It's just us now."

It wasn't a question, but Karkat felt like it needed an answer.

"No fucking shit."

"This isn't like the end of your session, is it?"

"Not a gogdamn bit."

The smell of blood was thick, and Karkat shuffled on his feet. Everything was fucked up in this session, and it was probably all his fault. He had really hoped that maybe these kids would have been able to get through alright, that the people he'd _made_ would be better than he had been. But despite all their work John was left alone with a pile of corpses. Not even a fucking universe.

John took a deep, shuddering breath. "We need to look at this door."

"I fucking know."

"Did you have one?"

"No."

They both took another long look at the bodies. John wiped red blood onto his pants.

"I fucked up," John muttered. "And now they're dead."

"Welcome to my life," Karkat spat, spinning back to face the door. He walked over to it, hating how eerily white it was against the Battlefield. The doorknob glistened. It pissed him off even more.

"Should we just leave them here?" John's voice came from beside the troll. "I feel maybe we should take them with us."

"We can't fucking take them all," Karkat replied heavily, rubbing his eyes. "Shit...just shit John. Stop looking at them."

It was hard dealing with John normally, but even worse when he was acting like this. It was better to leave the corpses. It made your failures less memorable. And obvious.

"Karkat, it wasn't your fault either," John said quietly, looking at the door. "This wasn't your fight. I'm sorry."

Karkat had a million, swear word laden arguments to that point, but John continued talking.

"I think we should get going. I guess we aren't done the game yet. I know we messed up and now you're stuck with it. Let's just say goodbye first, Karkat."

He didn't want to look at the corpses again, but he turned around. His eyes lingered on Terezi, her green blood and detached arms, and hated himself for fucking up so badly. The only thing he had done was not die. And right now seemed like the wrong thing to do.

That was all he could manage. Fuck, he was crying again. John patted his shoulder, tears falling freely from his own eyes. With a quick movement, the boy grabbed the doorknob, staining its clean slate with brownish red.

A second later he pushed the door forward, revealing a light that threatened to burn Karkat's vision away. Shit. The troll squeezed his eyes shut, wondering if maybe he had died after all.

John grabbed his wrist, tugging him forward. Karkat scowled. He was being looked after by a kid who had just lost his closest friends because he was too fucking useless to walk by himself.

Following behind John as he walked forward, Karkat entered the brightness he could still feel behind his eyelids. It gradually darkened, and when John released his wrist he felt safe enough to open them.

What he saw made him hate himself even more. Or rather, what he didn't see.

There was no exit.

Or entrance.

Only white.


	2. Black and White

0 Days, 00:00 Hours

John turned immediately to leave, but the door they had entered through was no longer there. He wasn't even sure if there was a wall in front of him. He felt the air, but nothing brushed his fingers.

He faced forward again, just as Karkat grabbed his sleeve and pointed upwards, mouth hanging open.

There was a giant...timer, John wanted to call it. Bold, black numbers floating far above their heads counted upwards. It seemed to work in seconds and hours, judging by how fast it was going and the number of spaces left as zeroes. Maybe it counted days too?

"The hell?" John muttered finally, unsure what it was even doing there. Karkat shook his head, still looking up.

"Are we dead?" John continued. "I mean, I've been dead before, and maybe this time I'm realizing it or-"

"I don't know about you but I'm not fucking dead," Karkat replied. "Help me see if this place ends."

Of course Karkat would be certain over something like that. John sighed, and began walking, following Karkat's suggestion. He started off at a quick walk, before realizing there was something he should really try. He moved his hands. Shifted his feet. Willed himself to do the windy thing.

Nothing.

"Karkat! I don't think I can do the windy thing here!" he shouted over his shoulder. Karkat had walked fairly far, but John could still make out his scowl.

He still had his god hood and god tier clothes, but he wondered if he had lost those abilities and powers as well. Or was it that he still had the power, and couldn't use it here? Wherever "here" was. The place was like nothing he had ever seen before, outside of movie sets.

No matter what direction he walked, he never ran into anything. There were no walls, and it was hard to tell if there was a ceiling or just endless white above him. If he hadn't had his feet on the ground, John was sure he would become completely disoriented. The clock, too, was odd, always seeming to be directly over his head no matter where he was.

After five minutes, according to the floating device, John stopped. He hadn't found anything, and it didn't look like Karkat had either. The troll had stopped, standing in one spot, hands clenched tightly into fists. John understood why, alright. He made his way towards his friend.

John himself was doing his best not to think about their friends and the final fight. It was extremely difficult. They had been his closest friends, and they had all died despite his best efforts. Nothing made sense.

It was obvious Karkat had been crying again, but John didn't say anything as the troll scowled and wiped at his eyes. Instead, he sat down, and patted the spot beside him for Karkat. The troll hesitated, then flopped down in a heap beside the boy.

There wasn't anything that could be said. They were both thinking the same things, both feeling the same, dreadful way. And they were stuck in a room with nothing to do. During the game, it had been impossible to get a moment of rest like this. It wasn't relaxing. It was just depressing.

Or maybe they were still in the game.

Karkat was glaring into his shoes, rubbing dried blood off his skin. John watched the time tick by above their heads. Nine minutes felt like an eternity. There was nothing to look at besides themselves and each other, and nothing to think on but their own failures.

It took another moment, but John finally felt his resolve harden. There had to be _something_ they were meant to do here, or some way of getting out. He was working on his awesome, morale lifting speech in his mind.

The clock flashed 10:25, and the world shook.

He was glad he was sitting; otherwise he would have fallen immediately. The shaking made a horrible, screeching noise and Karkat had already covered his ears. John did his best to keep from falling over anyway, when he saw something shift in the corner of his vision.

A pillar rose about ten feet away, coming from an invisible hole in the ground. Something small and cube like sat on top of it, a splash of colour in the sea of white. Behind it, an outline of a rectangle slowly formed, and above that a square of red and blue.

The pillar stopped rising, the world stopped shaking, and it was silent. The boys exchanged a quick glance, before rushing towards the new phenomenon. It was a cube, alright, but the rectangle behind it was what caught his attention.

Was it a door?

The symbol above it was half red, half blue, divided diagonally. Two circles were on it, intersecting. Nothing John had seen used in the game before. He reached forward, and was able to, in fact, touch the doorlike shape. Okay, so there were walls now.

"Egbert."

John turned, looking at Karkat. The troll had taken the cube from the pedestal, and John realized he had seen things just like it before.

"A Rubix Cube?" His voice was genuinely surprised.

"Fuck, Egbert, it's called a fucking Troll Square," Karkat spat, spinning the device in his hand. "And I fucking suck at these."

John took the puzzle, and couldn't help but give a faint laugh. They had something to do now, alright. Of course it was going to be something difficult.

"John, tell me you're laughing because you're some kind of fucking genius at solving these. Please tell me you can solve one in your gogdamn sleep."

"Karkat, I fucking suck at these too."


	3. The Four Worlds

0 Days, 01:00 Hours

It had been so long since there was a noise so frustratingly irritating that Karkat wanted to find a way to slice off his ears. The click the Troll Square made every time John turned it was the worst thing he had ever heard in his entire life. He wanted to shatter that pile of shit into a million pieces.

The lack of others things to do wasn't making anything better. John was busy looking like a fucking idiot, and his blood soaked godhood made Karkat feel sick. That left the pillar, which Karkat leaned on, the clock, which showed his life slowly wasting away, and the next fucking door.

The symbol above it looked funny. What did it even mean? Why did the game randomly have a new symbol...if this was even still part of the game. Fuck, what was even happening anymore?

At least the room seemed to have a set size now. It wasn't very large, but it was a bit better than a pile of fucking nothing.

Karkat decided to stare at the clock. They had been in the room for over an hour, and gotten fucking nowhere. This was probably some kind of punishment for being the worst leaders that the game had ever seen.

"Karkat!"

Gog, John was being too cheery. It sounded so forced. Another thing to get angry about.

"I solved a side!"

"Great fucking work, John. Five more to go."

But John was unperturbed, rushing over already to show off his work. "Is this your planet, Karkat?"

Karkat grabbed the cube from his outstretched hands. It was in fact Alternia, sitting on a backdrop of white.

"I think the other sides are other important planets! Earth seems to be on there, and Prospit and Derse. I can't really tell what the other sides are but they're red and blue."

"It's probably that fucking thing over the door. Game's got new fucking logos for stuff to revolve around."

John nodded, already back to concentrating on the Square and forgetting that the troll was alive. Karkat wanted to go back to ignoring the boy, but the fucking clicking noise was beyond distracting.

Only a few minutes passed, and the object was stuffed back into Karkat's face.

"I'm getting better!" John reported. Alternia was no longer together, but John had Derse and Prospit solved. It was better than anything the troll could ever do, not that he'd admit it. Again, John pulled the Square back, spinning and staring at it. The wheels in his mind were turning behind his eyes.

It was actually fascinating. Karkat stood straight, watching the pieces scramble and reform in John's hands, getting ever closer every time the device spun. There was something different about this than the rest of game. John wasn't rushing anymore, and he was getting so close.

John looked up, catching Karkat's eye and grinning. In return, the troll scowled, but that just made John laugh.

"Do you want to-"

"Finish the fucking puzzle John."

Eventually they were both sitting beside the pillar, using it as support as the clicking continued. Egbert had managed to solve three sides many times, but with mistakes that he couldn't fix properly scattered across the other half. Always getting closer.

"Egbert, you've been working on it for two hours."

John was too busy solving the cube to look up or reply. Karkat sighed heavily, pulling his legs to his chest. This game was bullshit.

"Egbert, it's been two and a half hours now. Do you-"

"I solved it."

Karkat snapped his head to the side, looking at the very completed puzzle Egbert was holding proudly in his hands. Gog, this kid could be so insufferable and awesome at the same time, it was horrible.

The two stared at the block for a few solid seconds. Karkat waited for something to happen. Nothing did.

"Should we put it on the pillar again?" John guessed. He looked over the completed thing, looking curious.

"Worth a shot."

Scrambling to his feet, John stretched, placing the solved cube on the top of the pillar. Karkat was quick to follow behind. For a moment nothing happened, but the pillar began to sink back into the ground. Karkat switched his attention to the symbol above the door, seeing it light up. The room seemed to be getting brighter as well.

Shit, not this fucking brightness again. Was this going to happen every time they changed rooms? He tried merely shielding his eyes, but it wasn't enough cover. He closed them tightly as well, feeling a grip around his free wrist. He was so fucking pathetic to need John's help.

"The door's open, Karkat. Just walk after me."

Of course, walk after the human who could fucking see normally. Why the fuck not. He began muttering under his breath, about how he hated clicking noises and troll eyesight and the colour white. John hummed before him, footsteps ringing out in the otherwise silent room.

When the brightness stopped hurting his eyelids, Karkat knew they had arrived in the next room. John gasped, at first holding tightly to the troll's wrist, and then letting it go. Karkat blinked a few times, trying to get his eyes to adjust, and his mouth almost fell open when he was able to see.

There were four giant, stationary spheres in the room. In fact, each one could easily have been the size of a room itself. There were two on either side of the boys, stretching horizontally outwards. All seemed to be held a few feet in the air through some magic force, with a staircase running around them, almost too thin for a person to be comfortable on.

The closest two seemed eerily familiar. The one was covered in sand, with patches of white and black across it. The second seemed to be filled with buildings, though it was smoggy and had seen better days.

"Shit," Karkat breathed. "Fucking bulge shit what is this place."

The two outer spheres looked very familiar, on the other hand. They seemed completely flat, but as if someone had put a photo around it. The outlines of Earth and Alternia.

Scattered everywhere on the floor was buildings, roads, rivers, mountains, anything that ever graced the face of either planet. It was as if someone had emptied their trunk across the floor. An entire planetful of people. It was a disaster.

Over his shoulder, there was a table with a few boxes placed on it, all of course white. The timer was ticking by silently overhead, reminding the boys that precious time was wasting as they stared at their surroundings.

John was crouching down, holding some small piece of planet in his hand. He flipped it over, as Karkat cleared a bit of a path at first with his feet, then with his hands. Gog, it was fucking disgusting to be plowing through all this shit. Where the fuck did it come from? Where did it go?

There was a small tree by his feet, and Karkat picked it up. The smoggy planet, and the photoworld of Alternia glared back at him. He studied the tree again, wondering how massive it must have been to have its own mini figurine. On a whim, he placed it against the photoworld.

It stuck.

He spun, and it seemed John had in fact noticed. His arms were full of buildings that could belong on either planet, but there was a raw hope in his eyes.

"You think if we put all this stuff back, we get our homes back?" John asked, his voice breathless.

Karkat looked around. "We have nothing else to do."

He snatched the tree off his photoworld, looking back to the mess at his feet. They still had to check out whatever was in the boxes, but maybe trying to get everything organized first would be better. Shit, there was a lot. There were a million fucking remnants of their homes and just two of them. It was going to take for fucking ever.


	4. Basic Needs

0 Days, 18:21 Hours

"John that's fucking part of Alternia."

With a sigh, John put the building in the pile on his left. He was sitting in a circle of miniature figures, with extremely little room to move around in. They had been at this sorting for fifteen hours, _fifteen_. It was going to be the longest day of John's entire life.

They hadn't even made a dent yet. In fact, their two pitiful piles of sorted shapes seemed like nothing compared to what they had left. It was ridiculously discouraging. Especially since John only sort of knew his own planet, and Karkat's planet was a mystery. The angry troll was the real mastermind behind this sorting.

Of course, that wasn't the only issue. The boxes they had found had contained useful items. Bandages, chalk, glue, some basic tools. But there was no food or water in the room, and of course there was no exit. They were going to be in massive trouble shortly without resources.

But still, it kind of puzzled John, and the more he thought about it the less sense it made. He wasn't hungry, or thirsty, and he didn't really remember the last time he ate or drank. Surely by now he should at least want a snack, or feel dehydrated.

"Karkat?"

The troll spun, glaring daggers at the boy. "What. The fuck. Is it now."

"I was just wondering if you were hungry."

"Of course I'm not fucking hungry. Even if I was, there's nothing to fucking eat in this buldgesack of a room. So shut the fuck up and go back to sorting and don't fucking bother me with your inane questions."

John sighed heavily. Karkat had gotten increasingly more agitated as the hours had passed, and the boy was certain Karkat would snap sooner or later. There was probably a lot on his mind, and John wasn't being very helpful.

Sorting was painful. Both in the sense that it was hard to tell what the pieces were, and the fact they all seemed to be pointy. John was nursing numerous pinpricks in both his hands, though Karkat seemed to be able to avoid getting cut very easily.

The silence was always heavy on John. He couldn't say he cared for it. Sure, they made noise dropping objects into their two piles, and when they had to stand to keep their legs from going numb. But Karkat shut down all conversations, and had pelted John with miniature parks when he attempted to hum.

Karkat rubbed at his eyes, and John looked up from the building he was holding to look at the troll's face. He had giant bags under his eyes, which were a deep shade of grey against the rest of the skin.

"You could get some sleep for a bit," John suggested, looking back down at the object in his hands. "I mean, I can sort for a while by myself. You always look so tired, so as long as we're here doing this you can rest."

He had expected some kind of angry retort from his friend, but the dead silence caused John to look over. Karkat seemed frozen in place, his eyes wide with shock.

"Karkat?"

John reached over, shaking his shoulder slightly.

"John, I'm not tired."

"Karkat, you told me you don't sleep!"

"No, John. As in I am no longer sleepy. There is nothing in my pan telling me that it is time to sleep. Do you fucking get it?"

He _did_. There was no food or water, because for whatever reason they no longer had to eat or drink. Or sleep. John wondered if they could even if they had the means to. The building in his hand dug into his skin as he held onto it.

Their eyes met, and John saw the sheer confusion and fear he felt reflected across Karkat's face. This place was horrid in an all new way. The white walls seemed overly oppressive, and the numbers even more harsh.

A new trail of red ran down his hand, and he relaxed his grip over the building. There was nothing else they could do but sort.

When John began to hum, Karkat didn't protest. It was better than nothing. It was better than thinking about the room.


	5. Discussion

7 Days, 3:49 Hours

After a week, neither of them could stand the silence. Karkat had been able to last longer, he almost liked the periods when they wouldn't talk. John would fill the gaps on conversation with whistling, humming, muttering, anything it seemed to piss the troll off. He had made a point of shutting John down any time he could over the first few days, but now the silence was more annoying than shitty Earth music.

There was just too much in the silences. It made him think about his failings, as well as his present situation. Things like, how had he fucked up so horribly, and where the fuck were they.

So, instead, their sorting was filled with useless, shitty, unhelpfully awkward small talk.

"Do trolls get married?" John was asking, sorting through a pile of sand tiles. "I know you have like, weird quadrants and stuff, but do you marry any of them?"

"The fuck is married? Is it like a funeral?"

John smiled. He hadn't laughed a lot lately. "When you love someone-"

"First off," Karkat interrupted, throwing an unfamiliar mountain in the Earth pile, "trolls don't love. We pity."

"Isn't it like the same thing?"

"Love is a fake shitfilled asswipe Earth emotion. It doesn't even belong in a quadrant."

The boy sighed, and Karkat figured that was the end of _that_ conversation. Neither spoke for a few minutes, returning to the endless sorting. But the silences never lasted. Karkat would fucking break something if they did.

"So, what the fuck is married," Karkat muttered. He hated being the one to keep the conversation going. He sucked at this small talk shit.

"It's like, promising you'll love only the other person. And there's a huge party, and awful tasting cakes, and sappy lovey-dovey things."

Shit. That was atrociously romantic for something from Earth. It was like something that should be in one of his horrid romantic comedies films.

"Do you fucks make movies from that?"

"Sure! There are tons of movies where people get married. I mean, they're not as awesome as some movies...and one of my favourite romantic scenes is from Lost in Space! But there are tons of romance...films..."

John's voice trailed off. Karkat could feel the blue eyes digging into his pan, but there was no way he was going to get into his love of shitty romance films.

"Karkat, is there something you want to tell me?"

"Egbert I will fucking kill you if you ask that again."

"Okay! But if we ever get back home, I think we should have a movie night."

If being the key word. If they made it home. If they ever sorted the endless pile of fucked up miniature locations. If the week without eating didn't catch up and kill them.

This was why Karkat needed the noise. There was too much to think about otherwise.

John stood, probably getting tired of sorting. The troll could go for a break, too. But he hated taking them. It felt like it was just wasting time.

The boy jumped a pile of Alternian figures, flopping down next to Karkat. He pulled his knees close to his chest to make up for the fact there was no room, and looked at the troll. Karkat dropped the objects he was sorting.

"What?"

John shrugged. It looked ridiculously awkward. "Let's talk."

"About what?"

"Anything's fine. Like...what did your room look like back home?"

Reluctantly, Karkat described his room. The slime pod, the computer, the various movie posters, how much he loved writing code even if he sucked. John jumped in, talking about his own movie posters.

It was...pleasantly distracting. Karkat couldn't quite take his mind off the giant spheres and white walls, but he wasn't dwelling on them, either. John was rambling, and was constantly amused by Karkat's disdain over inferior Earth media.

The conversation shifted, and the two talked about how people could be really fucking stupid, and John and him exchanged their favourite film titles. Karkat's took almost two full minutes to say, but John looked interested. He was also finally fucking laughing again, and the troll almost cracked a smile.

Almost.

He guessed there were worse people he could have been stuck with, and while John was a fucking bulgesucking wriggler sometimes he was also Karkat's friend. It almost didn't feel like they were trapped in some gog forsaken hole for a few moments.

But the clock moved silently overhead. That made it fucking hard to forget.

"Is this like, another ending maybe?" John's voice was quiet. Thoughtful. Absently, the boy picked at a scab on his finger, and Karkat smacked him.

"Don't fucking do that. And, what in a shitstorm of crap do you mean by another ending?"

"Like, some games change their ending depending on your choices. We did a lot different than you guys. We didn't make a frog or anything for instance. Maybe we got some kind of weird ending because of that?"

Immediately it seemed to make sense to Karkat. Why couldn't the game have more than one ending? It would be just like this bitch of a game to do something like that. Argh, this entire place was completely fucked up. He pushed his face into his palms.

"So what, is it a good ending? Are we going to die _later_ rather than with everyone else?" Karkat muttered.

A park hit him in the side of the head. He dawned his best scowl to look over at John with.

"We'll make it a good ending Karkat! We're going to rebuild our worlds to their former glory, one piece at a time! No matter how long it takes!"

"Is that from some Earth movie."

John smiled. "Nope."

John just looked too fucking determined. Of course this kid could rebuild the world.

"You must have been the most intolerable leader." Karkat stretched out his legs, leaning back on his arms. "And you were still probably fucking better than I was."

Egbert got to his feet, godhood trailing on the ground. "I don't really know about your leadership skills, Karkat. But I think you could be a good one. Besides, I was just an intolerable friend."

He offered a hand down to Karkat. "C'mon."

"C'mon where, you fucking idiot. We have nowhere to go." Karkat glared daggers into John's eyes, but took his hand and hauled himself to his feet.

"We'll sort and stuff later. I dunno about you, but I'm tired of white. And we have chalk."

John looked ridiculously mischievous. His grin reached from ear to ear. It was so fucking contagious. Karkat smirked to himself as they walked over to the bench where the chalk was left. It was time to add some fucking colour to his hell.


	6. Confrontation

33 Days, 7:37 Hours

They had dented the pile. It wasn't a lot, but there was obviously more sorted into two sections and a lot less clutter. John was feeling quite proud of their work, actually. He was even beginning to tell the differences of Earth and Alternia architecture on his own by then.

However, that wasn't because of any help from Karkat. And over the past few days, the troll had become grumpier than usual. John's attempts to cheer him up made less headway than usual, and it seemed Karkat was determined to hammer one point across until it became true.

Karkat, of course, was the worst fucking leader in the entire galaxy.

John couldn't be sure why Karkat was so hung up on the point. Maybe he had really been a horrid leader, but this was just getting ridiculous. Especially since the troll had basically taken charge in their present situation, and wasn't doing a bad job at keeping them both working.

When he tuned back into whatever Karkat was going on about, it was apparent the troll was still complaining. John sighed.

"Why the fuck are the pieces so gogdamn small?"

John shrugged, examining a house. "Well, at least it's not the _actual_ size of the planets. Then we'd be screwed."

"Hurrah, one fucking highlight in my miserable existence in this gogfucked room. Excuse my endless mirth as I examine the life choices that lead me here."

John rose to his feet, walked over, and stood over Karkat. "Stop that."

"Stop what? Sorting? Fuck, Egbert, if we keep taking breaks we'll never get done."

"No, keep sorting. Stop being such a downer!"

"John, we are trapped in a fucking white room with a giant clock, forced to sort miniature houses until your fingers bleed like a gogdamn wriggler. I think I can be fucking upset with my life at this point."

John grabbed the troll's shirt, hauling him to his feet. "I'm intervening."

"What the fuck is there to intervene about?"

"I just don't want you hating yourself, Karkat! It's just us and I don't think hating yourself is helping any. You-"

Karkat shoved the boy back, and John stumbled into a pile of miniatures. A few of them broke his skin, but he was more upset they'd have to resort them later. Meanwhile, the troll seemed a bit angrier than usual.

"Fuck off, Egbert. You don't know anything. I fucked up my session and yours, so just go the fuck back to sorting."

"So talk to me!"

The troll had drawn his sickle, pointing it at the boy. John felt his eyes widen in shock. Really? Was Karkat really going to fight him over something like this? He wasn't even trying to be a douche, he was just trying to help.

"Do you want to fight, Karkat?" he asked.

Karkat seemed to be weighing his options, but they both knew he would never win if they fought. Although John wasn't sure if he still had his godhood powers, he still had the clothes, so that meant he probably did. Probably. They stared each other down for a few minutes, before Karkat put away the sickle with a growl.

"You don't fucking get it, Egbert. I couldn't lead our session to victory, and now everyone I knew is dead. And your friends, too. And now I'm stuck here, doing more work, wondering how the fuck I am going to make a bulgelaced greasy mess out of it like everything else."

The troll seemed deflated. John walked over, and gave him a pat on the shoulder.

"Man up, Karkat! You've been a good leader so far."

"Like fuck."

John laughed at that, and shuffled back to the pile he had crashed into. "But you're doing a good job now! I mean, I fucked up in my session too, Karkat. You're not alone there. So you can blame me too if you want."

Karkat grumbled some kind of reply, but went back to sorting. John watched him over his shoulder until he was pelted with parts of Alternia, at which point he returned to sorting. Hopefully Karkat wasn't too mad. And maybe he'd stop wallowing in hatred for a few hours, too.


	7. Artery

98 Days, 10:20 Hours

"This game is fucking bullshit," Karkat stated, examining the room. "We've been at sorting for fucking ninety eight Earth days and we aren't fucking finished."

John shouted some kind of acknowledgement. He was working behind the smog world, and thus out of sight from where Karkat was standing before the Earth photo world. The staircase looked as ridiculously thin as ever. Everything was bullshit.

Even if they were getting close to being done. There was maybe a week left of work for the two of them, so long as he kept John working and not fucking doing nothing. Sorting was like some kind of punishment. Some form of ancient torture he was being subjected to. And the lazy, optimistic fuck of a partner he was stuck with didn't help.

"John get your ass over here," Karkat yelled. As he heard the boy shuffle to his feet, Karkat grabbed the picture world and pushed. But it had to spin. The staircase didn't fucking reach everywhere.

"What's up?" John asked. He had gotten taller, and was a bit awkward when he walked. He was moving his arms oddly as he stood in place.

"I want to spin this world."

At first, John looked confused. But he was getting smarter. "Oh, because of the weird ladder, right?"

"You're fucking brilliant, Egbert."

"Karkat, this world is kinda... ridiculous. Do you think we can?"

It was more than ridiculous, the world was fucking massive and they both knew it. It was kind of a stupid idea, but there had to be some way that these planets moved.

John was already making his way up the weird stairs. Karkat figured the kid had some idea what he was doing, and let him go. So long as John wasn't as much of an idiot as usual, things would go well enough.

"Okay, so our manly pushing will somehow move a sphere the size of a room?" John asked. His voice was a bit quiet, although he was probably yelling. Karkat scowled, knowing that John couldn't see him from the other side of the planet.

"It probably spins on something, you fucking asswipe of a wriggler. I wanna know now before we finish sorting in case we have to get creative."

"Sure thing, oh leader!"

Karkat had to growl at that. He had given up demanding that John stop calling him that, because it did fuck all to stop him. The only good thing about being the leader now was he got to boss John around.

"When I say go, use your spindly human body and push. Got it?"

"Yup!"

"Go."

From his spot on the ground, Karkat heaved, but wasn't really surprised when nothing the fuck happened. The thing didn't even creak. The idiocy of the endeavour hit him, but logically it _had_ to rotate.

He heard John give a small cry of frustration. Karkat wondered if they were even pushing in the same direction. Some leader he was, fucking forgetting a key detail like that. He let out a sigh, beginning to walk over to the side Egbert was on.

"Hey, idiot!"

"Shit!"

A few seconds of silence later, and there was a sickening crunch.

The troll was around the planet in seconds. John was lying on his back. On the floor. Not moving.

"Fucking bulgebuckets of shit Egbert!" Karkat yelled, skidding to a stop beside the boy. "Don't fucking tell me you're dead! What the shit? What if you can't revive?"

John coughed up blood. "I think I broke something."

It was worse than that. There was a mass amount of blood coming from his far leg, and there was white bone showing clearly through his pant.

"John, you're not allowed to die," Karkat spat, feeling himself panic. "You can't die ever."

"Karkat...I'm tired."

Karkat pressed his hands against the giant wound, but the blood didn't stop flowing. What the fuck had it hit? Some form of human bleed out point?

"John, fuck, fuck. You can't die. I can't do this."

"Mm...god..."

John coughed up more blood. Maybe the fuck had hurt something else.

"You bulgesmacked idiot. What if you don't fucking revive? What if you can't anymore because of this hellhole where you can't do the windy thing? What if this is a just death? Fucking shit, Egbert, look at me!"

But John couldn't look.

He wasn't breathing.

Karkat's vision blurred. He grabbed the closest wrist, but it was limp in his hand. There was no pulse to it.

Shit. He wiped his eyes. He had to keep it fucking together. There was nothing to indicate John wouldn't revive this time around. Death was meaningless to him. He'd fucking come back.

Karkat couldn't look at the body. He glanced around the walls, at the stupid pictures they had put up with chalk to try and keep themselves sane. It was a stupid thing then and it was stupid now.

The redness of his hands began to eat away at the troll, and he rubbed his hands together in an attempt to clean them. How the fuck could someone be so stupid to fall? Even if the stairway was ridiculously thin. And had no railing. And the person in question was a fucking awkward thirteen year old boy who was getting too tall.

Fuck. He had to stop thinking about it.

An hour later, John was still lying in a pool of blood. Sorting was almost impossible with the glaring red and blue that John was. He'd revive soon. It was just taking him a while. Like the fuck he was.

After another hour, Karkat lost it.

"The fucking bulgesack is wrong with you! Why did you fall? You cock nursing crack sniffing ass wipe..."

It was too much to insult a corpse. He couldn't find it in himself to fucking cuss John out. The boy was too dead and too limp and it didn't make the troll feel any better. Why the fuck had he died?

"I can't do this, John. Revive."

But John did nothing. He was a fucking corpse.

Karkat sat down beside him, pulled his knees tightly against his chest, and cried.


	8. Rotation of the Planets

126 Days, 00:00 Hours

John opened his eyes.

The clock blared down at him, and it took a moment for the numbers to register. What had happened? He knew he had died, but that had been on day 98, so why was he only waking up now?

He sat up abruptly, and let out a yelp. Karkat was sitting at his feet, with a glare so strong it was probably deadly. The troll's expression was a mix of rage and sadness.

"Thanks for fucking taking so long," Karkat spat. John could feel the venom in the words as he shifted into a better position. "Thanks for fucking falling to your death and then taking so long to revive I was sure it was fucking permanent."

Oh, now John felt guilty. He hadn't really meant to fall. He had shifted his footing trying to spin the planet, and forgot how narrow the staircase was…

Damn, it had hurt bleeding out.

"Karkat, I didn't mean for it to happen. I'm sorry."

"Yeah, sorry as shit. Doesn't fucking change the past thirty days of _raging intense hatred for you_."

John leaned forward and gave Karkat a huge hug. The troll struggled, using numerous insults and swears to announce his dislike, as John patted his back. Karkat relaxed after a moment, and John felt him press against his shoulder.

"Don't ever fucking leave me alone like that again, Egbert," his voice was quiet, and John probably wouldn't have heard him had they been farther apart. He smiled slightly. Karkat was such a dork sometimes.

John let go, leaning back, as Karkat regained his dignity and scowled. Things seemed to be going back to normal rather quickly.

Finally, he was able to look around the room. The floor was clean. There were two distinct piles by the two photoworlds. Feeling his jaw drop, he looked at the worlds themselves. There was actually a section of Earth filled out. Each photoworld had a pillar in front of it.

"How...when..." John tried to talk, but he struggled to find the question he wanted to ask first.

"Shit happens when you're busy being dead, Egbert. Get the fuck on your feet and you can go play with the dial on Alternia and get the hang of it. Once you're done there, come over to Earth and I'll try and teach your simple pan how we are rebuilding your fucking ignorant asswipe of a planet."

The troll rose to his feet, shuffling off towards the Earth photoworld, grabbing a handful of miniatures from a small pile separated from the larger one. Too stunned to react, John continued to sit, and gingerly touched his leg.

Rarely he had time to dwell on his own death. He wasn't really sure he wanted to, but if he could take the moment he would. The scene flashed before him again. The exact moment when he realized he couldn't counter his own weight falling backwards, and the crunch and snap as his bone pierced through his leg.

With a small sigh, he stood, pulling the hood back over his head. There was no point sitting there doing nothing, and besides, Karkat would probably start yelling at him if the first thing he did after being dead was _nothing_. He wandered over to Alternia.

The column had a dial on it. Simple enough. John puzzled at it for a moment, before grabbing the knob and turning. The planet turned.

Well, that just made his death even more pointless.

"When did these appear, Karkat?"

"When I finished sorting without you, asshole."

So the room knew what they were doing. Okay, why not. John spun the dial a few more times, but soon got bored. Beginning to hum, he wandered his way over towards the Earth photoworld, eyes lingering on the spot of brown red on the white floor.

God Tier or not, he couldn't afford to die like that again.


	9. Puberty

206 Days, 9:09 Hours

With every few days that passed, John got increasingly more useless. Karkat didn't know what it was about humans that made them grow so haphazardly. He, of course, grew an average amount for his entire life until he was tall enough.

John had gotten four inches taller since they arrived.

And, of course, the kid was not gogdamn used to it.

Karkat was at a loss. How had humans as a race survived if they became ridiculously awkward the moment they got a few inches taller? Their limbs were stupid too. John looked more like an idiot than he had before.

Whatever. It was time to get back to work. They had been taking a break, sitting near the photo Earth. John was halfway through some retelling of a series of Earth movies. It was something to fill the silence.

"And so then, Jar Jar gets his tongue caught in the numbing beam, and he can't talk properly, right? Cause Ani said that'd happen!"

"This movie is significantly dumber than the others you described," Karkat retorted. "Now get off your ass and on your feet and find me the rest of that... uh, giant wall."

He glanced at Egbert, who looked depressed. "The movie does kind of suck."

"Giant wall?"

"It's called the Great Wall of China, Karkat. I keep telling you!"

"Whatever the fuck you idiots named it doesn't matter. Go find me it."

John got up, and looked towards the troll. In response, Karkat spun on his heel. He was beginning to get paranoid about his eyes. They were probably fucking going to show his blood colour soon. It was around the right time.

But of course, there was no way of fucking checking and he wasn't about to ask. Instead he just avoided letting John look at his face. It was fucking hard, especially when they had to work together, but he didn't have a choice. Karkat hated it.

Assembling Earth was at least better than sorting had been. There was a lot of shit on it Karkat hadn't seen before, like the wall they were working on. The two boys had made a fair bit of progress, but weren't really near done. At least humans had built some impressive crap.

John _finally_ began to wander his way over to the pile. In general, Karkat didn't let the idiot go up the ladder by himself anymore, but this rule was more relevant the more awkward he got. Whenever he crouched, John became a mass of weird limbs and joints. Like a gogdamn wriggler.

The human continued to ramble about the horrible movie, which sounded a million times worse than even the shittiest troll film. Karkat himself began climbing the stairs, making his way back to the spot he had been working at before their break. A small pile of figures waited for him there, and he carefully took a seat.

He was working on filling in some mountains and fields, where as John had to get the rest of the pieces of the wall. He was quick to fall back into his rhythm, focusing on the shapes and edges of the picture to place every miniature in the right place. It was a bit difficult at times, but anything was better than sorting.

Time itself, though, was completely irrelevant now. It didn't matter how long things took, because there was nothing to look forward to exactly, or a time to stop. Karkat in general tried to avoid looking at the clock. It made him feel watched. And rushed. The game was a douche like that.

"Karkat?"

A break from the movie's idiocy. "What?"

"I've been wonder-ing-"

There was some strangled noise from John's throat in the middle of the word. It sounded completely and horrifically strange, and Karkat couldn't help but laugh.

"The fuck was that, John?"

John didn't reply for a moment, and Karkat continued placing the miniatures. Who knew what the fuck John was doing.

"It was just a voice crack!" John sounded defensive. He was also climbing the ladder. "It just happens to humans around now, okay?"

"You all randomly have voices that change from super high to hilarious? Your species is stupid."

Being a human must suck if you had to go through a period where you were unable to use your limbs _and_ you sounded like you gargled bulges.

"It just means my voice is getting deeper! Geez, Karkat, it doesn't last forever."

The boy was up the stairs, and he crouched down slowly beside the troll. Karkat made a point of not looking towards him.

"But, what I was trying to say," John continued, his voice a bit quieter than usual, "is how is it we're aging?"

"Time is passing. I didn't think that was hard to fucking grasp."

John made some violent movement, probably shaking his head. "No, I mean. We aren't eating or sleeping. I know I shouldn't have the energy to grow. And our clothes still fit, but we've both gotten taller."

John at least worked as he talked, placing pieces of the wall in their proper spots. Karkat worked as he listened, guarding his face as he replied.

"The game does whatever the fuck it feels like, John. We are just wrigglers trapped in a gog damn room. Just don't fucking dwell on it and help me rebuild this ass of a planet."

At that statement, the boy laughed, shifting in his spot. "Whatever you say, Red Leader. I'll go get-"

"What the fuck did you just call me?"

Karkat wanted to turn and strangle the human, to punch John across the face. Instead he closed his eyes and clenched his hands into fists. What if John knew? Why the fuck hadn't he been more careful?

"Red Leader? Well, cause there's a scene in Star Wars and one guy's called that. And like, you're the leader right? And I was just explaining the movies."

Okay, maybe John didn't know. Maybe it was just a fucking coincidence that the movie used that colour. Karkat was going alright. John didn't know.

"And because your eyes are red."

_Fucking shit_.

How the fucking shit did John know. When had he slipped? Why the fuck did his eyes have to show that stupid gogdamn mess of a blood colour? He felt himself slipping. No. He could not fucking break down over this.

He grit his teeth together painfully. "And, how long have they been red, John?"

A pause. The most agonizing second yet.

"About twenty days?"

It had been a while since Karkat's entire fucking world collapsed. Of course it fucking had to again. He numbly noted John dragging him to his feet, but dwelled more on that fact. Twenty days. Fucking twenty days of his eyes blaring his blood colour to the world and he hadn't known. He had only tried to hide them for about one fucking day.

And now it was on full display and everyone would fucking hate him for it. Much like how he hated that stupid, fucking colour.

When the fuck had he climbed down the stairs?

Why the fuck was John so close?

"Karkat, it's okay."

"It is not fucking okay!" Karkat shoved the boy back, squeezing his eyes shut. "I have been fucking dreading this moment my entire life, and when it fucking comes up I didn't know for twenty days? I am a complete fucking freak of my race John, what part of that is 'okay'?"

There was a hand on his shoulder. He shrugged it off angrily, but John placed it back all the same. After a few moments, Karkat worked up the courage to glare at the idiot. He was too fucking tall and too fucking happy. The troll's world was collapsing and the fucking wriggler John was probably didn't give a rats ass.

Twenty fucking days.

"What the fuck are you staring at me for?" Karkat snapped.

"Well, there's no one here but me, Karkat."

"That isn't a fucking answer!"

John ran a hand through his hair. "I guess what I meant is, that's your blood colour, right? In your eyes? But that's my blood colour too, so I don't think you have to worry."

"John, today marks a horrid day in my life in a gogdamn line of horrid days and your shit is not making anything better."

"Karkat, no one is left who gives a shit about your blood colour."

Something about that phrase jarred him. Of course someone was left. _He_ cared. Karkat cared that his blood was fucking neon red and glaring, and completely outside any norm of his race.

But the words nagged at him. No one else was left but them, after all.

"I know you're probably thinking about how much you care, Karkat, but I really don't think it matters anymore. I didn't bring it up because I knew you'd be uncomfortable with it or flip your shit, and look, I was right."

Karkat scowled. "You fucking asshole, don't-"

"You aren't any different because of your blood, Karkat. You've thought so your whole life, I'm sure, but we're stuck here so you might as well try and change your mind. You've been a great leader so far and nothing's changed. Get your shit together, Kar-kat."

The voice crack at the end of his speech was, of course, unintentional, but caused the troll to smirk. John was too busy clearing his throat, and trying to regain composure.

"Fuck off, Egbert."

"You don't hate me, right?"

"I hate you more than anything in this damn room."

John gave him a small hug, then wandered over to the pile. Karkat rubbed his eyes, thinking back on what John has said. Blood was everything on Alternia. Being a mutant meant being outcast or killed if it was ever found out.

But they weren't on Alternia.

Karkat began to climb the stairs again, wondering why the fuck John could change his mind so easily.


	10. Omnipotent

271 Days, 21:13 Hours

John had never been to Australia. There were, of course, many places he had never been on the planet, but Australia was his focus for the moment. It was hard for it not to be. He had been staring at it for a few days.

He wasn't that fond of the continent. It had too much desert. Too many pieces that all looked the same, but of course, couldn't be identical. If he left one miniature in the wrong spot, then the entire world would notice. Typical.

With a small sigh, he looked up. He had been doing that a lot lately. Mostly because of what he had built recently.

He had put together Jade's island two days before.

It hadn't been many figures. Karkat had surprised him by finding the tower and pelting the boy in the head with it. But it was her island, and it was built, however tiny. It gave him hope. It made it really seem like they were getting something done.

However, looking up also posed a minor problem. The clock. It hadn't really bothered John before, but lately it seemed... different. Larger. Closer. Darker, perhaps? It felt like they were falling down, ever so slowly, from above.

A finger driving itself into his cheek brought him back to the present moment. He glanced to his right. "What's up, Karkat?"

"I was coming down to get more pieces and you're sitting on your ass staring at a clock. I have the laziest asswipe of a friend."

John grinned. Karkat sighed.

"Just don't keep staring at it, John."

The troll stepped around him, and John returned to work. Slowly, his mind began digesting what Karkat had said. John hadn't been told off just now for slacking. There had been something in the way it said phrased that made the boy believe he wasn't alone in his newfound fear of the clock.

Seconds ticked on, and the numbers blared down at him. They frightened him a bit. He turned to Australia, but couldn't help but feel their presence still. He tried to focus on the sand. He peeled off a piece, replacing it with one very similar. The colour was a bit different. It was the better match.

Before he saw the troll, he heard the footsteps on the stairs. John turned, catching the troll's eye as he rounded the corner. Almost immediately Karkat looked away. He was still touchy about his eyes, but he was getting a bit better. John's lack of caring seemed to be helpful.

"What the fuck do you need, John?" Karkat asked, his voice more annoyed than angry. "We have shit to do."

"It's the clock."

Karkat rubbed his eyes, then sat down beside John. He dropped his pile a few steps up, and faced the boy for a second. He then turned his attention to Australia, and began helping to place the pieces.

"What about the clock?"

"I don't like it. No, that piece goes here."

John tapped another patch of desert, and Karkat complied. He hadn't stared at the island for quite as long as John had, and they both knew it. After a few more seconds, they both stopped staring at the planet.

"I don't like this entire fucking room, John."

The boy laughed. Karkat smirked. He'd obviously said it with that purpose in mind. They placed a few more pieces, with John constantly correcting what the troll placed down. Eventually, the troll stopped trying, and just watched John with his red eyes.

John tried again. "Haven't you noticed it kind of, feels different in here lately? I think the clock's gotten bigger."

"I actually do work most of the time," Karkat jabbed, but proceeded to look up. John felt a bit guilty and continued working. The troll really _did_ do more work, and of course it wasn't fair. John didn't know where he got such dedication from. He wanted to rebuild the worlds too, more than anything. But the troll definitely had something else that drove him.

"Shit. You're right. Why the fuck did you have to be right?"

"I don't enjoy it."

"John, this is serious shit. The clock is doing something. Just be extra careful, okay? I don't need you fucking dying again."

Karkat rose to leave, but John grabbed his shirt. The troll stumbled, but managed to avoid crashing into him. His eyes looked murderous as he shifted into a better sitting position.

"What _now_, Egbert?"

He put his face next to the troll's ear."Don't you feel like you're being watched?" John hissed. "Does it not bother you?"

Even then, he could feel it. A small tingling on his back. Something oppressive. Some kind of malicious force that was lurking with them, waiting.

He couldn't help but think it was the clock.

John pulled back, and Karkat met his eyes and held contact. It was unusual enough for John to focus. There was something about the troll that seemed determined, even then.

Karkat was an excellent leader. John had no idea why the troll thought otherwise.

"I think it's always been watching, John. We've just finally done something it thinks it needs to pay attention to. Like I said, we have to be fucking careful."

John shivered, beginning to glance upward. Karkat smacked his face, then grabbed his shoulders. "Stop looking, John. Don't let the game win. Don't let this fucking bulge of a room win. Focus on this gogdamn planet. You built Jade's home. We're actually doing shit. When you care more about that clock than this single, fucking fact, the game wins. Now get back to work."

Karkat rose quickly, snatching his pile of miniatures. He glanced over his shoulder at John, who felt a bit stunned. As Karkat made his way up the stairs, blue eyes drifted back to examine Jade's island. John shifted a bit awkwardly, and then went back to examining Australia.


	11. First and Last

302 Days, 8:00 Hours

"What's the first thing you're going to do when you get back?"

The two were sitting back to back, surrounded by the pieces of the ocean. John was being a fuck and not looking through them, so Karkat had decided to join him. Breaks were for ass vomited bulges. But he couldn't work alone anymore. It kind of entirely fucking sucked.

That damn clock was just too creepy for that. It was always there. Always getting closer. And it was completely and utterly freaky as shit.

"It's probably going to be breathing, you ass," Karkat finally replied.

"I meant like, aside from that shit! C'mon, Karkat."

The troll paused. He knew what it was he wanted to do, but it wasn't something that he ever mentioned. It made him hate himself, and he knew John was trying to get him to stop that.

"A fuck like you wouldn't understand."

"Karkat, you asshole!"

But John was laughing. Karkat rolled his eyes and leaned back a bit. The boy didn't really move, though the hood was fairly uncomfortable to rest against.

"I want to go see Terezi."

"Yeah? She's your matesprit, right?"

"...Yeah."

It had been sometime before that the two had begun their silent agreement that once they rebuilt the worlds, everyone would return to them. All the fucking idiot humans, all the trolls and their gogdamn hierarchies. They couldn't consider the alternatives.

But his friends were a different matter altogether. He didn't like thinking about them, and he sure as fuck never talked about them. Probably once in the whole time they were stuck there, and that was impressive enough. And that time they hadn't even mentioned Vriska.

"I guess you miss her a lot, huh?" John asked quietly.

"Fuck off."

He did not want to be talking about it. The wound was still too fucking fresh. He still felt like he had let them all down, and the moment John knew that Karkat would have to listen to another fucking pep talk.

"It's just," John continued, not taking the hint, "you never have talked about her the-"

"_Fuck off_."

John flinched at that one. Fuck, he just didn't get it. It was something Karkat never mentioned because he couldn't fucking talk about it. Especially with Terezi. He could have saved her, too. If he had just turned that second earlier. If he hadn't been helping Jade to her feet.

She had died right in front of him, too.

Fuck, this wasn't good. He curled his legs up.

"What in hellish fucking shit are you going to do?" Karkat wanted the topic changed. He didn't want to wallow around thinking about it.

"I just..." John's voice grew very quiet. "I just want to hug my dad."

"Oh."

"Yeah. I miss him."

He heard John curl up behind him as well. The boy kept talking.

"He died in the game. I didn't really get to see him much once it started...I mean, we weren't all that close anymore but, he was my dad. I really miss him."

Karkat cleared his throat. "We'll get him back."

John leaned back against the troll. The numbers blared down, and if Karkat squinted he was sure he could see them change sizes. Growing.

"John, we don't have fucking time to do this. We have to keep working on this ass of water covering your planet."

"But we haven't really talked about it, Karkat. Don't you think we should? I'm scared I'll forget them all."

"Get off your ass and get to work."

John sighed, but shuffled to his feet. He was still getting taller, and Karkat hated him for it. His voice was almost done cracking, though his face was getting a bit fuzzy. He looked stupid. And older.

Fuck, maybe Karkat did too. He glanced at the walls, at the stupid fucking chalk drawings that were fading away. It seemed like such a long time ago they had even finished _sorting_.

"Jade was really nice," John began, grabbing a few blocks of water. "She was the first one I talked to."

Maybe by the time he was done, Karkat could respond. He didn't want to forget either.


	12. Forward Motion

333 Days, 4:10 Hours

John was starting to develop a slightly irrational fear of clocks. And numbers. The clock was even closer, and both boys were a bit nervous about being at the top of Earth now. It felt like they were too close.

He glanced over at the planet and grinned. On the bright side, they had finished Earth. He felt accomplished. He could spend hours just staring at their awesome job. Shit, it had been a long time to make it. But they knew what they were doing now, so Alternia shouldn't take as long.

But, in the meantime, John had something else to do. Shave. Karkat had insisted the fuzz on John's face was an abomination, and thus John was attempting to shave his face. Without a mirror, or shaving cream, or a razor. At least he had the table.

It made him miss his dad.

It was going...better than expected, he supposed. He hadn't cut himself yet. Though he really wasn't sure what he was doing. At least he _thought_ he was almost done. Pretty good for a first time-

"Egbert!"

Shit, that startled him. He fumbled with the weapon, feeling it cut his cheek before falling to the ground. He quickly pressed a hand to his face and turned. Karkat had basically snuck up on him.

The troll was scowling, red eyes blaring. He _almost_ seemed comfortable with them. "John, what the shit is taking you so long?"

"I was almost done!" he said defensively. "I think. I can't exactly see myself."

Karkat examined him. "You look less fuzzy at least. Did you fucking cut yourself?"

"You startled me."

Karkat sighed, opening a box. They rarely used the things the room had supplied, mostly because they had no use for them. Karkat never got injured, and the injuries John had received had been small enough to avoid bandaging.

Except for when he had died.

He moved his hands, allowing Karkat to wipe the blood away with a sleeve and place a bandage over his cheek. It took a moment, but something small dawned on the boy.

"Hey, you're not really freaking out that I'm bleeding, Karkat."

The troll glanced at him, then closed the box. "You are fucking annoying."

"I'm proud of you. You probably would've flipped shit before."

Karkat seemed to straighten a bit. "Yeah, well, gotta fucking grow up sometime."

Both their eyes drifted back to the Earth. John rubbed his chin a bit. The planet seemed _alive_, especially now that it contrasted the desert world beside it. His eyes searched out where the States were, knowing on those small blocks were Rose, Dave and his own homes.

He grinned, placing a hand on Karkat's shoulder.

"Egbert, what the fuck in hell's bulge are you doing?"

John shrugged. "I'm just happy! Thanks, Karkat."

The troll shuffled the boy's hand off, stepping to the side. "We still have a lot of work. Alternia's not going to build itself, and you know shit all about the place. Plus, there's the gogdamn constant issue with the clock."

John knew all that. The thoughts weighed on him as well. He felt his happiness deflate a bit. "But we finished my home! I can enjoy that, right?"

"Whatever."

John could see a small smile tugging at Karkat's mouth. Earth was done. They were halfway done and they knew what they were doing. But that wasn't enough to keep his mind off of his friends, or their fates, or the clock that was slowly closing in. He needed something else escapist.

"Let's draw on the walls some more. Our old drawings are practically gone."

Karkat's faint smile dropped instantly. "We need to work."

"We can't _always_ work."

"If you hadn't noticed, John, we haven't fucking done anything in hours."

John didn't rise to the bait, pulling out a piece of green chalk. "I'm drawing Jade."

He began to draw her face out on the nearby wall, right by an old drawing of Karkat with a moustache. Jade would have liked that, it was funny.

"This is stupid," Karkat muttered. John turned.

"I just want to do something to remember them. Is that so bad?"

"John, we have fucking planets to build! Why are you even doing this?"

There was no fighting the reply. He let out a defeated sigh. "Because I'm scared I'm going to forget them still, Karkat. And I'm scared we're going to be unrecognizable when we get back. We keep moving forward, but I don't know if we're leaving something behind. You're so much older now, and I just had to shave! What if we're different people?"

Karkat studied him for a moment, red eyes meeting blue. "Who the fuck cares? We can't always stay the same, you pan demented ugly ass bulge wriggler. We'll go back to our planets and fit in, or _make_ ourselves fit in."

John wasn't so sure he agreed. He kept working on Jade.

"Fuck, Egbert. You should be happy, right? We made Earth. Stop being so scared."

"I am happy about that," John said, drawing in Jade's hair. "I can feel a lot of things at once, Karkat. We can do that."

Karkat let out a defeated sigh, and then picked up a piece of chalk. Together, they tried to draw away their worries, as the clock slowly ticked closer.


	13. Happy Birthday

365 Days, 00:00 Hours

"Hey."

Karkat glanced over. John had been staring at the fucking clock for the past ten minutes, and none of the troll's scathing remarks had changed anything. Of course, he had been left alone to work for that time, and he wasn't that happy John had chose _now_ to start talking.

"What the fuck do you want," Karkat muttered, placing a small figure. For the most part, he made John watch him work, trying to get the human idiot to understand how his planet worked.

"It's been a year."

Karkat glanced upwards. Shit, had it? Was a year such a random number of days? Earth counting was stupid.

"I'll take your word for it," he spat. He continued working.

But John was undeterred. "We haven't talked to anyone for a _year_. Doesn't that weird you out?"

"No."

At this point, Karkat did stop working. John was obviously upset about something. His fingers were twisted now in his god hood, and his expression was a bit bleak. There was something there the troll couldn't place.

"Are you going to fucking _say_ what's wrong, or are we just going to ignore it like the douches we are?"

"It's my birthday," John whispered.

The troll sighed. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

Fuck, this was obviously heading only one way now. Karkat could tell it was eating at John, and that wasn't a good fucking thing. The shithead was half the reason Karkat was still sane. There had to be _something_, right?

He plunked himself down next to the windy idiot. Time to see if he could dig up something else.

"So, what the fuck about it being your birthday is making you upset?"

"I just...never thought I'd be doing this."

Karkat scowled. "That's-"

"Stupid? I mean, like, I didn't think we'd still be here after a year. Or that, maybe it's just I never realized how long a year was. We've changed so much and I just..."

The troll punched his arm. John flinched, and rubbed the spot. Karkat punched him again.

"Move the fuck on, John. You're better than this. You are fucking better than this. You've beaten the game practically and remade Earth. Are you going to break down because today is your gogdamn birthday?"

John bit his lip. "Well, no..."

"What then?"

"I just feel lonely."

Of course. Earth birthdays were big freaking deals. The asshole probably was feeling homesick. Missing his dad. Or other friends. Shit, what was he compared to that?

"Come on," Karkat muttered. He grabbed John's hand, dragging him to his feet. Despite the boy's protest, Karkat dragged his ungrateful ass to the completed Earth.

The troll started up the stairs, John still following behind but a lot more quiet now. He haulted before the familiar chunk of land that was John's country. Earth was fucking stupid.

"You have a fucking home, John. And your friends will come back eventually, we just need to figure out how. You can't go there yet, but that doesn't mean it's fucking end time. Enjoy the fact you're here doing shit and not dead."

John paused for a moment, tracing his fingers over parts of the country. He then threw his arms around the troll. Karkat had been expecting it, and only stumbled a little. The stairs shifted beneath his feet, but they didn't fall. Fuck, John was predictable.

"Thanks, Karkat," John whispered. The idiot was _totally_ crying. Karkat smirked. Gog, this kid was amusing at the very least.

"You're such a shit," he replied. "Sobbing like a one sweep wriggler. Aren't you like, fourteen?"

"Yeah."

Karkat rolled his eyes. They weren't getting anything done for the rest of the day.


	14. 413

412 Days, 23:50 Hours

If John reached up, he was certain he could touch the clock numbers.

Karkat had already informed him that if he did, the troll would personally cut off his hands, so the black haired boy settled for trying to ignore it as he built a small section of Alternia. Still, he was awfully high up, and the clock being so close worried him.

After all, so many odd things had happened, why couldn't more?

With every piece John placed, though, he grew more worried. It had been nagging on him the whole day. Something felt wrong. He fumbled a piece, dropping it at his feet. With a sigh, he grabbed it again. He had to keep it together. Surely everything would work out, right?

The clocked got ever closer to the next day. Maybe the feeling would pass. He shifted a bit, but couldn't do it. He couldn't just ignore the clock.

"Karkat?" he called, standing carefully. "Karkat, look, I think something's going to happen."

The troll did reply, but John couldn't make out the words. Puzzled, he began down the stairs, making sure to not fall off. He was getting a lot better at handling his height, but he was still growing.

"Karkat?"

"What the fuck does your needy, pansy ass wriggling head need, John?"

The boy continued walking down the ladder, following the voice. "I'm worried."

"Yes, the clock is fucking worrying. It has been forever. Get back to work."

"Karkat, I'm serious."

When he reached the troll, Karkat was staring at him. His face was a mix of emotions that John wasn't really sure how to read. The two stared at each other for a moment, and then Karkat returned to working.

"Go back up the ladder, John."

John sighed, running a hand through his hair. Maybe he was guessing wrong. Maybe nothing was going to happen, and he had finally snapped. Become extra paranoid? Regardless, Karkat was right. He had to get back to work.

A large, cracking noise stopped him in his tracks. Immediately both he and Karkat looked upwards. The clock stood frozen at exactly 413 days, and another noise shattered the room.

"The fuck...?" Karkat muttered.

A chunk of white shone through the giant black numbers. It took John a moment to realize what was happening.

"They're falling!" he yelled, grabbing Karkat's arm. Shit, where to go? There was nothing for shelter except the small table... and even that might not hold. Still, it was better than where they were.

He took off down the stairs. He kept glancing to the side, wondering when would be the best height to jump from. Karkat followed behind, and John resorted to dropping his hand in order to turn faster.

A giant block of black hit the ladder in front of him, and melted away. Shit, time to jump.

He dropped the troll's hand, throwing himself off the ladder. He managed a tuck and roll when he hit the ground, and there was no tear of flesh. He did feel bruised though. A thud alerted him that Karkat had followed suit.

Without hesitation, Karkat ran on ahead, as John scrambled to get his footing. More pieces of black hit the ground, but didn't seem to be doing damage. They sort of melted when they touched something. Another crack. He had to get moving.

The table was far enough to make the run seem agonizing. The troll slid under it, dodging a large block on the way in. John was close behind, leaping out of the way of one block.

"Move!" screamed the troll. But John couldn't react fast enough, still reeling from his previous dodge. He felt the piece of black hit him full on.

Everything went dark.

But oddly enough, he was still standing. He glanced around. It was a giant black pit he seemed to be in. No walls, no ceiling.

"Karkat?" he called cautiously. No reply. What the hell had happened?

He glanced around, and a blur made him spin to his right. Odd, he was sure he had seen something. Slowly, he turned completely around, but there was nothing but the black.

Again, he was certain there was something in the corner of his vision, but no matter how fast he turned, he couldn't quite catch it. He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. Alright, so the game was fucking with him. Nothing new.

He opened them again to see purple eyes staring at him.

He yelled, stumbling backwards. He landed on his tailbone, and then scrambled backwards a foot. When John finally brought himself to look up again, he realized what had appeared before him.

"Rose?" he said incredulously. "What are you doing? I thought you were dead!" Were they in a dream bubble? What was going on?

"I am dead," she replied coldly. "I do believe you were there for it, and were too busy dying to do anything about it."

John felt his face drop to horror. "Rose, I never meant-"

"Nevertheless, I appear to be dead, and certainly you could have prevented this."

John got back to his feet, grabbing Rose's shoulders. "Please, Rose! Please, I wish I could go back and save you all. I was useless, I regret it, please believe me!"

Her eyes were cold and merciless. Blood dripped from her arms, and clung to her clothes. John gripped her shoulders harder, silently begging for something.

"Regret doesn't bring people back to life."

A new, all too familiar voice behind him. Slowly, John turned. Dave stood, glasses in hand, a huge gash on his head.

"I'm doing everything I can," John pleaded, dropping his grip on the girls' shoulders.

"Really? I think you're slacking pretty hard, man."

John backed up, away from both of them. "No, I'm doing this so we can be together again! I'm going to fix this, so please, please you know I can do this, right?"

The siblings were bright contrasts to the black room, reds and blondes standing out. Were they glowing, or was he just imaging it? Was John imagining all of it?

He kept backing up, and hit something. Immediately he spun, dreading who he knew he would find.

Jade.

"Not you too," he whispered. "Please, Jade, please, I never meant to kill you. Or hurt you. Any of you!"

But she didn't say anything. Her face was a mixture of pain and anger, sorrow and hatred. John felt tears sting his own eyes, reflecting his sister's.

His friends hated him.

At some point, his knees must have buckled, but he was only aware of suddenly being on the ground. He clutched his head. Why were they here? What was happening?

"John, you killed us."

He shook his head. "Rose, I didn't! I fought my hardest and we won, and I'll get you back!"

"You still killed us," Jade replied from over him.

"No!"

"Then you let us die."

A voice he didn't recognize. He squeezed his eyes shut. He wasn't going to look. He couldn't give in. Voices he knew and ones he had never heard swarmed around him.

"You let us die."

"You should have protected us."

"You've disappointed me."

"You're such a fuck."

He clenched his hands into fists against his temples. No, he was letting the game win. Hadn't Karkat told him not to do that? Not to lose sight of what he was working for? He straightened, as the voices around him grew louder and louder.

"I'll get you all back," he said, feeling a small smile begin. "I promise. I'll make this work."

He glanced around him, but there didn't seem to be anyone left in the black room. John felt a shiver run through him, unsure what that meant, or even if it meant _anything_.

Something grabbed his wrist. And then he was slapped in the face.

"Fuck!" he shouted.

"Are you awake now, you stupid wriggler?"

Karkat was leaning over him, glaring. John wasn't aware when he had gotten back, or when he had decided to lie on his back.

"Yeah, I'm awake."

"The fuck happened? You got hit by a black thing and passed out. I couldn't go get you, and you've just been lying there like a fucking gogdamn idiot."

John wiped at his eyes, but there were no tears there. Had he really just imagined it all?

He looked beyond the troll, up at the clock.

"It's shrunk," he commented.

"I think it reset in size," Karkat grumbled. "Fuck, John, did you just faint?"

The boy made his way to his feet, brushing off his shirt. "C'mon, we gotta get back to work."

"Are you going to tell me what the ass fuck the game just did?"

John glanced back over at the troll. Karkat _did_ seem pretty worried. But he couldn't exactly explain what had happened. Not yet, anyway. What would the troll say?

"Later. I promise. But first, let's get back to work, alright?"


	15. Paranoia

460 Days, 11:02 Hours

Working was hell.

It wasn't just what they were doing that was painful. No, Karkat was used to the annoyance of sorting and placing pieces on worlds by now. But ever since the pieces had fallen from the clock, he and John had been constantly worried about what else the room could throw at them.

Sometimes it just got ridiculous, to the point where the two of them would do nothing but sit and wait, expecting horrible things to happen. Karkat was usually the one who would break them out of that funk, but he was also the one who tended to start it.

John, on the other hand, was being a lot less of a fuck since his crazy experience seeing his dead friends. The troll didn't think he could handle that so well. But like fuck he'd ever admit to that.

For the most part, he and John continued their small talking as they worked on Alternia. The boy was getting almost decent at knowing where things should go, although Karkat still checked his work. He wasn't having his world built incorrectly.

But the bouts of paranoia tended to come out of nowhere, so when Karkat suddenly dropped all the pieces he was working on John was quick to jump on it.

"What's up red leader?" he called from below Karkat.

The troll's mind was racing. Shit, what if he did mess up the world? What if really, everything was backwards? Or the game only took the first time you placed something? He dug his hands through his hair, sitting on the stairs. Fuck, he hated this.

John had wandered his way up, sitting beneath the troll. He gave Karkat's leg a pat, then smiled.

"It sucks, doesn't it?"

"Fucking understatement," Karkat spat. "John, I feel like we're messing everything up."

John shrugged. "I don't see how. If the game is trying to stop us then we have to be doing something right, right?"

The clock falling flashed back through Karkat's mind. That fucking event seemed like it was never going to stop replaying. With a hand, he traced over the miniatures he had placed in the last few moments.

"I don't fucking know anymore. Shit, when did we get so easy to scare?"

John opened his mouth, paused, and then closed it again. He had thought of something. Now the idiot just needed to get his fucking thoughts in order. Karkat knew him well.

In the meantime, Karkat placed a few miniatures down. It was some mountainous area, and although he hadn't been there before he understood how it was supposed to look. He scowled. There were only a few pieces that hadn't fallen to the ground.

"I think...maybe everything here isn't so random," John finally stated.

"How was what happened _not_ random?" Karkat demanded. He slammed a miniature down against the world.

"Well, we got the spinners when you finished sorting the pieces..."

"And?"

"And when the clock fell...well, 413 is kind of important to my session. So maybe this ending keeps the themes. So I think maybe something happens every 413 days?"

"Great, now my irrational fear has focus. Thanks," Karkat grumbled. He played with a miniature in his hand. "But that wasn't our number."

"Nah, I didn't think it would be."

John got to his feet, giving a small stretch. He carefully placed his feet down on a lower step.

"It was 612," Karkat said.

John nodded. "Well, this time we'll be ready."

He wandered back down the stairs, probably to where he had been working. The fear had passed, and Karkat gave himself a small shake. The two of them seemed to be getting more needy as time went on. He was getting really fucktastically weak.

The troll settled down to continue working, when he realized more than half of what he needed was on the floor. He muttered a few swears, and got back up.

As he climbed down, John's voice drifted towards him. "What are we gonna do when we get back, Karkat?"

"What does that mean?" he snapped. He stepped over the windy idiot when he got to that section of the stairway.

"What if we can't talk to each other anymore?"

For a moment it didn't register. They'd just not talk. They spent the greater part of their lives apart.

But he'd spent forever in the room with this kid. Without sleep, without rest. Keeping each other sane, for the most part.

"I am not letting this game tear the worlds apart even fucking more," Karkat spat. "So you'll be stuck with us forever."

Laughter. Karkat scanned the ground. Where the fuck were those pieces?

"We can have sleepovers, okay Karkat?"

"That sounds stupid. We will just _not_ do that."

There was the pile he had dropped. What the fuck was wrong with him, dropping them like that? Well, he knew the answer, and hated it. Maybe they'd shake this fucking fear of the room and go back to just hating it. New goals. Always a gogdamn blast.

Karkat gathered the pieces, and made his way back up the stairs. The clock ticked on overhead, and the walls stayed decorated with hideous chalk drawings. When he passed by John, though, the boy grabbed his leg. Karkat glared.

"I'm not sure how we're going to get along with other people," John said quietly. "I mean, we're going to one day, but I dunno what to say anymore."

"We'll just make idiots of ourselves for months."

"But-"

"Fuck off, that is what we will do."

Because Karkat knew what was worrying the idiot was the same thing he was worried about. What were they going to do when they got back? A year seemed like a long time to be away from everyone. Adjusting was going to be another hell to come from this fuck of a game.

Even if they won, they were still going to lose. The mere thought of it made him want to get over the fear even faster than before.


	16. Half and Half

512 Days, 12:42 Hours

John figured that from all the work he and the troll had done, and the size of the piles, they were probably about half done Alternia. Damn, it was something that made him feel pretty accomplished. It had kept him pretty level headed, working. They'd both slowly gotten better at dealing with the impending events. A hundred days left.

However, he could only think about it for so long, as he was shaving himself again. It was getting easier the more he did it, but the bandages on his face reminded him he wasn't _that_ good.

He hummed to himself, feeling his face over briefly. It seemed good enough to him. John spun it in his hand, feeling a bit content.

The repetitive task done, John headed back towards the staircase. Karkat would have a fit it he hung out down there for too long. Besides, the work was a bit enjoyable.

Karkat himself was at the very top of the ladder, finishing the high parts of the world. John's station had been a bit further down, and together in the past few days they had made a few of Karkat's friends' hives. Working on the world was really a learning experience, although the sight of the other hives had made Karkat a bit depressed.

But that had been a few days ago! John had been working on keeping a positive attitude, and even Karkat seemed to have improved his mood a bit. Well, for Karkat.

"Karkat, I'm done now!" John called, making his way up the stairs. He heard the troll grunt. "And yes, I can go back to work now!"

The boy reached the top of the stairs, seeing Karkat perched at the end with a pile of miniatures beside him. He shot John a short glare and placed a figurine.

"Thanks for taking forever," Karkat muttered, slamming a figurine down. John offered the scythe, and Karkat snatched it and stored it.

"Well, you're the one who wants me to shave!" John chuckled. "I could just look gruff and like Nic-"

"Don't make fucking Nic Cage jokes. You just look stupid."

In reality, they both just looked older. Karkat's face was getting narrower and more squared, and he just looked...older. It was weird. John was still taller, though, which made him happy.

"So," Karkat continued. "Let's see what you've got done, you useless fuck."

"Sure! I think I've got these hives in the right places, but a once over couldn't hurt at all!"

Karkat grunted a reply, giving a glance at the clock. John followed his gaze upwards. The clock didn't seem to be getting larger yet, but it was probably just a matter of time. At least they knew what it meant this time around if it started.

The troll began to shift to his feet, but something was wrong. He was putting his feet too far back.

There wasn't another step behind him.

John lurched forward immediately, as Karkat fell backwards over the edge. The troll was able to grab the last step, and swung off the staircase. John was over there in seconds, hauling Karkat back up onto the staircase and propping him against the planet.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. John's heart was pounding. Karkat, the careful one, the angry, safety oriented one had almost fallen to his potential death. Fuck, that had been freaky.

Karkat gripped John's arm tightly. "Fuck," he finally said.

"Yeah."

"I am so fucking stupid."

"Yeah."

Karkat leaned against him, which was a bit awkward on separate steps. John didn't complain, though, knowing Karkat was probably scared out of his mind at the moment.

"I can't believe that just happened. Shit, shit Egbert."

The troll shuddered, and John would have given him a hug but his arm was being slowly crushed to death.

"C'mon, it was bound to happen at least once. Now we've both idiotically fallen from the stairs! Because you warned me bro. You-"

"_Don't fucking say it._"

John shut his mouth immediately. The teasing could wait, after all. Karkat seemed pretty shaken.

"You're not gonna die on my watch, Karkat," John stated, wishing he still had feeling in his arm.

Karkat grunted a reply. John thought there was a high chance he was crying, and politely averted his gaze until the troll was ready to check those hives John had placed only an hour before. He gazed up, watching the clock tick by.

They'd get to go home soon. Then there'd be no more falling off stairs, or stabbings fingers with pieces of towns, or stressful waiting. But John could keep waiting. He didn't want them going insane any more than they had to, after all.


	17. Growing Up

560 Days, 17:00 Hours

The planet was becoming more recognizable with each passing day. Karkat didn't think it was as bright as Earth, and certainly had its own kind of colours. But it sure as hell contrasted the smoggy ass planet beside it. Good. He'd have some place to go home to.

More or less, at least. They hadn't put down his hive, but he was holding the next best thing. He was cradling Terezi's hive, the weird fucking tree she insisted on living in. He knew that the two of them had been working in her area lately, and had been surprised when he pulled it from the pile.

With each hive they found, Karkat found he was less afraid and hurt when he thought about the other trolls. Maybe it was the near death experience that had made him realize he should _always_ have his shit together, it was hard to tell. It just slowly stopped hurting.

There were other things, too. John still couldn't handle the silence, but it didn't seem to wear on Karkat anymore. If he couldn't hear John's rambling, he didn't freak out. Much. The kid was such a fucking idiot he had to make sure to keep an eye on him.

But the biggest change of all was that, most of the time, he didn't feel guilty about everyone's deaths. Some of them, yeah, he still thought he could have fucking prevented, but a few of them now...he couldn't explain it. And didn't. After all, John could just fucking tell these things by now.

Karkat wasn't sure when everything had changed exactly, but he'd only really noticed lately. And finding stuff like Terezi's hive made him think about it even more.

Fuck, he was turning into a lazy ass John, thinking and not working. Thinking of that idiot, he looked to his left, where the kid was working.

John was still growing. Annoyingly. It had slowed down lately though, but fuck if Karkat liked being so short.

"You almost done that part, you fuck?" Karkat snarled. John gave a small scowl of his own in reply, but when he glanced at Karkat it turned to a small grin.

"Obviously," he replied, giving a chuckle.

Yeah, that was annoying. John was having fucking moodswings like some kind of wriggling douche. Human puberty shit and their emotions and fuck was annoying to deal with, especially since Karkat was the only other person around. Hell.

But, on the bright side, John was able to place the pieces almost perfectly. He seemed actually interested in what Alternia looked like, and while he didn't get why things went where they did he could match details well enough. All the same, Karkat wasn't fucking living in a fucked up world because John was being a stupid kid.

It was only a few steps down until Karkat was beside the windy idiot, and he knelt down, Terezi's hive still clutched in his hand. John had been working on some random patch of land. Good. It was turning out nicely.

"Keep it up," Karkat grumbled. Praise was stupid, but John seemed to like it. He kept watch as John placed down a few more blocks, until the human turned to him.

"What's that you have?"

"Terezi's hive."

Blue eyes widened. "Oh."

"Don't oh. It's no big fucking deal," Karkat snapped, beginning to climb the stairs again. "I snap it down, it's over."

A shuffling behind him said that John was following him.

"Go work," Karkat instructed.

"I wanna watch you put it down," John insisted, stepping up the stairs in time with Karkat. "It's important, right?"

Yeah, it kind of was. Terezi had been his matesprit, and he kind of fucking wondered what would happen when he went back. It was confusing. But it still meant something.

John was waiting now that they had reached where the troll had been working. Even two steps down the idiot was taller than Karkat. Damn.

Karkat rolled the hive in his hand before placing it back on the world. Shit, maybe they weren't here for no reason after all. It was a bit of waste of time, but at least it was a _productive_ waste of time.

"Karkat?"

"Yeah?"

"You look really happy."

Oh. That was fucking weird.

"Yeah, whatever. Move your ass."

John laughed, heading back down the stairs. John's good moods were infectious. Hell, this was just a good day all over he guessed. At least they were getting shit done. It might have been good or bad, Karkat didn't really care.

John had resumed muttering to himself. Fuck, maybe Karkat should trying and break him of that habit before they went home.


	18. Before the Storm

611 Days, 23:00 Hours

The two of them had slowly stopped working as the clock had ticked on. John had stopped putting pieces down, instead choosing to stare at both the clock and the planet. There was only an hour left before who knew _what_ happened, and he really wasn't feeling the whole 'fix the planet' thing.

It didn't help that they were getting close to finishing the planet. Maybe they had a week left of work, though sometimes it was hard to guess. It was getting a bit stressful around there.

Lately, he and Karkat had started arguing again too. For the most part, John _knew_ it was his own fault. He couldn't stop the muttering, and he was making more mistakes. The troll was rightfully pissed, but for the most part all John did was argue.

They worked apart from each other for the most part, although John had to admit he much preferred talking to the troll to his insane mutterings. But both were better than the silence. He wasn't sure why he hated it so much, especially more as time went on. He didn't really feel guilty. Maybe he was just scared of what was going to happen.

Whatever the reasons for it, it was awful. John raked a hand through his hair and glanced at the clock again.

It was so hard to believe they had been there for so long, and even harder to think that they'd be done soon. John was almost a bit nervous about going back home, but was more excited to get out of there than anything.

Steps alerted him that Karkat was coming down the stairs. John gave a small sigh. Just so long as they didn't have another fight. John was kind of tired of those, but he was also a bit tired of Karkat's attitude. Maybe they just needed to get out of here.

"Come on stupid," Karkat snapped, as he continued down the stairs. He stopped a few steps above John as the windy boy got to his feet. "We're not going to be fucking standing on this staircase this time."

Well, Karkat wasn't angry. That was a bonus. Or maybe John just hadn't been an idiot yet.

"Move your ass and stop talking to yourself," the troll continued, grabbing John's wrist and twisting around him. John allowed the troll to haul him down the stairs. If Karkat had stopped working he was probably nervous.

"What do you think is going to happen?" John asked when they reached the floor level. He gave a quick glance over at Alternia. It was looking amazing.

"Something fucking bad," Karkat spat, tightening his grip. John gave a small wince, looking to where the troll was dragging him.

The table did seem to be their only shelter still, so John had to agree with him on that point. It would have been better last time if they had just started off there.

Something awful was probably going to happen again. It wasn't going to be the same thing, most likely. The game had millions of tricks, and could see their every move, and it was an awful idea.

Hell, the silence was going on for too long.

"Maybe we shouldn't go there," John said hesitantly. "I mean I know it worked before but the game isn't gonna keep things the same, right?"

Karkat paused, glancing back at the boy. "I guess not."

John opened his mouth to say something, but Karkat clamped his free hand down on it. The boy didn't like it. He didn't want there to be silence, but even now Karkat seemed determined to try _something_.

After a few moments though, Karkat dropped both his hands, scowling. He sat down on the floor. John watched him for a moment before speaking.

"Karkat... look, first, I'm sorry. Second, you know when you said something bad was going to happen? Well, what if it's really bad?"

"Gonna have to be more specific," the troll grumbled, giving John a small glare. "And don't fucking apologize, it's stupid. Now sit down."

John obliged, but not without a small scowl. Sometimes having Karkat as the leader was a bit annoying.

"What the shit do you mean?"

"What if we die, Karkat?"

It was, in John's mind, a legitimate fear. Karkat could die very easily, and if the situation was bad enough, John would easily get a heroic death protecting the troll. And then Karkat would be alone or he would be alone and then they'd have spent all this time doing nothing. For no reason.

John was grateful when Karkat broke the silence and his thoughts.

"I am not fucking dying, and neither are you. I have not suffered here for six hundred Earth days to be bulge smacked into death when we are almost done. So don't keep letting this gogdamn game play with your head."

"But-"

"Shut up, I'm not done." Karkat smacked him up the side of the head, and John rubbed it gingerly. "I am sick of fighting you because of your pig headed stupid ass argumentative streak and your gogdamn muttering fetish. We are in this together and you are _not_ dying."

John held eye contact for a moment, temporarily stunned. It morphed into irritation.

"Don't, John," Karkat said quietly. "Can we just stop?"

John's anger deflated. Well, maybe Karkat was right. John was usually the one in the wrong, and he was kind of getting worked up over nothing. Except he _hated_ being treated like an idiot.

"Gog, dealing with you is horrid, John."

"Sorry."

Karkat grunted a reply, which to John was excuse enough to shuffle a bit closer. He earned a small glare, but otherwise the troll didn't remark on it.

Half an hour left.

Half an hour until the end times, the horrific event. There just wasn't enough space here either, and when-

"John, you know you look stupid when you start panicking, right?"

"Yeah," John sighed. "Well, I guessed. Sorry, I hate the silence, and right now it's just extra awful."

"You can't keep that fucking up. When you go home, what the hell are your stupid Earth friends going to think if you can't have a fucking lull in a conversation?"

But there was so much in his thoughts that would come up if he let it. He pulled his knees to his chest and sighed. "I guess I'm going crazy either way. Some god, huh?"

There was a pause. "Fuck. You're so stupid."

"Yup."

John took up humming to pass the time, as Karkat fidgeted with John's hood. There was nothing left to do except sit and watch the clock slowly count up. It was unnerving as shit, and the closer it got, the more John's mind raced. What were they doing? Why couldn't they prepare anything?

Two minutes.

"Karkat?"

"What, John. Kind of going to be busy shortly so make it snappy," the troll's voice was lacking in the usual irritation. He was shrunken up into a ball as well, so John leaned over and gave him a one armed hug.

"I'm scared too," John whispered.

One minute.


	19. 612

612 Days, 00:00 Hours

Everything shook.

John gripped onto him tighter, and Karkat felt nails dig into his skin. The worlds shook against the ladders, creating an almost deafening rattle of metal against planet and miniature. It stung at his ears, as the shaking blurred his vision.

It seemed like after two hundred days, the game had finally woken up. And it was pissed.

Karkat almost wanted to cover his ears and do _anything_ to lower the awful noise, but even he was shaking too much to be able to move properly. His free arm simply moved every which way, as John did his best to keep steady as well.

The table collapsed, legs spintering and skittering across the floor. The troll watched the chalk smudge the white floor, and bandages roll across. The rattling continued, even turning into a horrendous screeching which made both boys flinch.

Fuck, it had only been a minute.

Quickly, Karkat went over what options they had left. Standing wasn't going to be happening, and movement in general was going to be really fucking hard. Hopefully if they did have to do something, John would man up and listen instead of picking a fight. It was probably going to happen. The kid looked terrified.

So, no moving, no shelter, and probably no hearing by the end of the day. Great. Not that he had expected something easy, or simple, really.

A few pieces of the ladders began to fall off, and Karkat yelled as many swear words as he knew. Like fuck they were going to lose the stairs before they finished. He tried to shift, but John's grip was fucking tight and the floor was doing its own crazy hellish tango of unsteadiness.

Fuck, there was really nothing else to say. They were stranded and helpless and the game was going to prevent them from finishing in any kind of convenient way. Shitting bulges, Karkat was going to rip apart his fucking discs for it if they managed to get back.

But something was changing the more time that passed. His eyes were beginning to sting. And physically hurt. Karkat began to squint, wondering what was happening, and something John was shouting finally came through the background noise.

"Close your eyes!"

Karkat didn't need to wait for clarification, because the room was obviously also getting really fucking bright. He squeezed them shut, but it wasn't enough. Even through his eyelids he could see how bright the white room was. And it hurt.

John dropped his grip, but Karkat was too busy trying to shield his eyes to give it any real notice. The shaking continued, and the sound never ceased, and this was the biggest fucking assault on his senses since playing the game. Hell, this was one step removed from being the worst experience he had in this fucking room.

Without warning, the shaking stopped. John crashed into him, and they both sprawled on the floor. The stairs rattled, but soon even that noise stopped. It was too bright to check what was going , John pulled the troll back to a sitting position.

"What the fuck, is it over," Karkat grumbled. "What time is it?"

"Can't see the clock," John replied quickly, placing his hand over the troll's eyes. At least it made things darker. "It's pretty bright in here, the walls are completely white, so's the ground... the chalk's missing."

"Great, the game can't appreciate the graffiti you spewed," he grumbled.

"Everybody's a critic!"

Okay, maybe that was it. Shaking he could handle. Keeping his eyes closed, he could handle. Even if it was permanently, John was enough of a fuck to be able to finish his world. Alright, things were hopefully going to work out.

But Karkat hated getting his hopes up.

"Uh, Karkat? Can you...just open your eyes for a sec?"

"Why the fuck would I do that, buttass?"

Hesitantly, John drew his hand back. Behind his eyelids was dark. Oh, shit. Immediately his eyes flew open. Even with his vision, he could barely make out an outline of John, and the ass was under a foot away. Oh, holy shit.

"Keep close and stay calm. We don't know what's going to happen, but-"

Karkat didn't get a chance to finish. A strange noise began. It sounded like rocks hitting a metal sheet, slow and echoing. He strained his eyes, unable to figure out what was happening.

A few moments later, something buzzed passed his cheek. With a scowl, he glanced around. Nothing.

"Karkat, do you hear those?" John had shuffled to his feet, and Karkat followed suit. They stood back to back, scanning through the darkness.

Again, the noise, and this time his cheek began to sting. He pressed a hand to it, feeling a small trail of blood.

What was happening?

He continued to strain his eyes, as more hissing and clinking filled the air, and the strange objects stung his face and hands, tearing through his sweater. Fuck, where were they coming from?

"John! Any ideas?" Karkat snapped, trying to catch the thing that had torn the skin on his arm most recently.

"Huddle up and try to avoid getting more injuries?" came the quick reply, and Karkat felt John wince against him. "There's getting to be more!"

Yeah, no fucking shit. That's why Karkat was getting so many cuts. But he bit back the reply, shoving the blue boy to the ground as best he could in the darkness. Again, he scanned the room, trying to focus on the sound of plinking and _not_ the horrific fact that he could bleed to death from paper cuts before the end of the day.

He crouched on the ground, curling up as best he could. Karkat hated not being able to do anything about what was happening to them, but it was made even worse because he couldn't even see what was attacking them. The darkness was oppressive and constraining. The troll's chest was beginning to get sore.

Not as sore as his face, though. He had to close his eyes, blood rolling off his forehead in waves. Fucking injuries, gog damn game. He began to swear under his breath, but that made his face sting as well. He pressed it against his knees, and waited for the pain to stop and the light to return.

And it felt like he was waiting for his entire life. Even John wasn't doing his muttering, meaning he was probably going insane over there. Perfect, that was exactly what he wanted to deal with on top of whatever fucking issues were left finishing Alternia, and getting home, and finding all their dead friends.

The buzzing slowed, and soon Karkat was only nursing his wounds, instead of receiving new ones. Through the crusted blood around his eyes, it was hard to make out how bright the room was, but it seemed to be getting significantly lighter. He chipped at the blood, angry and nervous about what the state of the room was.

When he was finally free of hideous mutant blood clouding his eyes, he realized the room was still dim, but bright enough for him to see. The walls had been wiped clean, and the table was completely gone altogether, along with the box and everything it had contained.

With hesitation, he turned back towards the planets. Ladder pieces were strewn across the floor, but that wasn't what caught his eyes.

Earth was completely bare, the pieces scattered across the room, obviously what had been cutting them.

Alternia was half empty, the pieces piled beneath it.

Karkat saw red all over again.


	20. Post Apocalyptic

613 Days, 01:14 Hours

They had spent an hour in silence. John would have complained, but the previous twenty four hours had shaken him so much that his own panic seemed to have been shoved aside for the sheer disbelief he was feeling. Earth was completely stripped, and stairs were littering the ground. It would take a lot more to rebuild it again.

He shuffled a bit to the side, looking over the pieces. Some of them had streaks of blood on them from where they had attacked the two boys. John's whole body stung, and for the most part he left drops of blood when he moved. But it wasn't horrible. What had happened to the Earth was far worse.

All that effort, destroyed in a matter of hours. It was crushing. Enraging.

Karkat slammed his fist into the wall again.

John gave a sigh, ceasing his journey through the pieces. Although the Earth ones were scattered, for the most part they hadn't mixed with the pieces of Alternia that had fallen. A few had lodged themselves on the sandy planet as well. It was a mess. One they'd have to start on soon.

Another pounding made John to watch the troll. He was just as covered in blood as John was, although the red was a different contrast on the slightly torn black sweater and his grey skin. Although the troll had been swearing earlier, he had resorted to simply staring at the pile that had been made, and most recently moved on to physical abuse.

It had probably gone on for long enough. John knew he should intervene, but whenever he took a step his eyes drifted back to the grey photo of Earth. They could do it again, after all.

But it was so numbing to realize how closely the game watched them. He felt a shiver run down his spine, glancing at the clock for an instant before continuing along slowly to his friend.

The closer he got the more he could tell Karkat had been at this for a while. The wall seemed to have caved a little, and fresh blood sprung from scrapes on the troll's knuckles. There was even a bit dribbling down from his lip, where he was biting deeply on his lip. Karkat hated his blood. This was bad.

"Hey," John greeted. He received a glare so full of hatred and anger that John actually flinched backwards. For a moment, they stared at each other, before Karkat finally gave a frustrated sigh.

"We did all that fucking work! And this...the game..." His hands clenched tightly into fists. Oh, no, he was _not_hurting himself more. Blood dripped from his face down his neck, and John stepped closer to wipe it away.

Karkat smacked his hands for a moment, and then gave up when John refused to stop. He used his hood and got most of the blood on the troll's face. For a few more moments, neither of them did anything.

But within a few seconds, Karkat leaned against the taller boy. "Fuck, John. Why is this game such a bitch?"

"I dunno," John whispered. "I just dunno."

Karkat pressed his face against John's chest, and John gave his head a small pat. It stung, of course. They both had cuts everywhere. But really, the boy was certain that right then, they could hurt. They needed a different kind of comfort right then.

Because they had been so close. They could have gone home within days, and as of yet there was still no home to go back to for either of them. John was probably going to search through this pile and start with his friends' homes this time around. Screw order, or relevance. He wanted them to be back first.

"What do you want to do first?" Karkat muttered. "We could redo Earth. I can wait."

John sighed, shaking his head. The troll shifted backwards, giving his eyes a quick wipe. The boy politely pretended not to see, especially since he knew the troll was just frustrated instead of sad. John would probably start crying too, once the numbness passed.

But that wasn't the issue at hand. The planets were. As they always were. And despite the feeling that the room was watching, and the reminder that they were barely in control, John felt a bit of confidence and hope.

"Hey, we'll finish Alternia first. It'll take less time."

"Organize the Earth first," Karkat instructed, leaning on the blood stained wall. He flinched a bit. "Pull them close to the planet. Make it easier."

"Right. Yeah," John scratched the back of his head, flinching. His hand came back with more blood on it. Great, there was no way _that_ was going to get washed out. For a moment, he opened and closed his hand.

"Hey, stupid," Karkat snapped. John looked down, and the troll was staring up at his face. "This is a shit turn, huh?"

"Shit as hell," John muttered, "Shit as anything this game's thrown at us. Shitty as being the only ones left out of two worlds."

"Yeah."

Karkat took the hood in his hands, dabbing at both his own arms as well as John's. The hood itself was more red than blue now, and it was starting to feel heavy. John cracked a small smile as the troll poked at his face.

"You're an idiot, John."

"That kind of hurts. The touching. Stop that."

"I'm proud, though. You haven't gone crazy yet."

He gave the troll another quick hug. "You're a bossy asshole, Karkat. Did you know?"

"Of course."

The troll shrugged his way to John's side, looking over the planets. John's gaze fell on the mess of red stained miniatures they had been working with for so long. They were going to be there for a while longer, it seemed. A very, very long time.

At least they had each other. It was better than nothing. Even if they continued to argue, or if John kept slipping farther from sanity. It was time to get back to work.

John grabbed a piece and began to wipe blood off of it. It was going to be a long haul this time around.


	21. Slow Thaw

630 Days, 10:32 Hours

Despite the fact that John was the greatest idiot there ever was, he was at least good with doing what he was told. Earth's pieces had more or less been returned to around the empty photoworld. Karkat had briefly been working on restoring parts of Alternia during that time, and he had at least a few patches that were looking back to where they had been before.

But he had stopped that for something else that needed to be dealt with. Half of the Earth pieces were still covered in dried blood. So, of course, it meant manhandling all of the fucking miniatures and wiping them down. Of course, there had been the problem of what to clean them with, but the answer was almost too obvious.

After all, it wasn't like John _needed_ the god hood anymore. It had changed from its original blue to a damaged, disgusting brown, and the two had resorted to using it inside out for the most part. The troll had made sure that the kid's head was cleaned first though. The caked blood in his hair was disgusting.

So it was back to long, boring, repetitive work. The two boys would sit with the hood on their laps, cleaning off different parts and sorting the pieces as they went. John had been slowly getting better about sitting in silence, but for the most part still hummed or muttered.

Karkat sighed, dropping another cleaned piece onto the pile. It was bullcrap, doing all this. But he wasn't going to half ass John's world, not after what had happened.

Not that they had really talked about that. John didn't seem to want to touch on that, and Karkat didn't want to start arguments when there was no need to. It was pretty fucking upsetting on different gogdamn levels.

"I miss the walls," John noted absently, shifting on his seat. "It's so boring here now."

"No, really, this is _boring_?" Karkat snapped, grabbing another piece. "What a shock!"

John rolled his eyes. "Karkat, you know what I meant. I miss those drawings."

Karkat paused for a moment. Knowing John, that was some kind of vague lead up into talking about their dead friends. He chipped at the blood laden miniature in his hand, giving it a rub against the hood. A lull of silence filled the air.

The idiot cleared his throat. "You know, that's one of the things I'm scared of, going back."

"Boredom?"

"Forgetting everyone."

Yeah, there it was. Predictable. Karkat gave a sigh, looking over his friend. John was taller, his face was a bit thinner, and his hair even messier. A lot had changed, and they had discussed this issue many times before. But if it weighed on the kid that much, maybe Karkat would cave a bit and agree with him.

"I can kind of agree with you," Karkat muttered. He looked away, but could sense John's surprise. It wasn't what Karkat liked talking about, since it was depressing and the troll had to keep his shit together.

"Like, what if they're saying stuff and I don't remember anymore? I don't even know if I can remember what we did in the game anymore," John said softly, still cleaning the pieces. At least they could work and talk then.

"Then just explain to them you spent over two fucking Earth years fixing their planet, and they better respect you for it," Karkat snapped. Not like he'd get much respect for it heading back to Alternia. But he knew those idiotic kids and they'd understand why John was a bit weird in the head. Really, sometimes the troll wondered what John was worried about.

"I guess I just don't want to be...isolated."

"Yeah, well, you'll have me, you stupid shit, so you won't be. I'm not letting you get away with ditching me to suffer."

That got a laugh out of John. Good. Neither of them were really laughing or amused anymore, especially due to having to completely redo what they had already finished. No, Karkat shook his head. Now wasn't the time to get mad. It was the time to get John to keep himself together.

Because, after all, the troll _knew_ they needed each other. It was a stupid codependence, but after this long, it seemed wrong to consider what would happen if they were split up. There wasn't going to be any other person who could share this with them, after all.

"So, we'll be with our friends and somehow still talk to each other?" John was asking.

"Sure. We need some kind of stupid optimism, might as well be about our friends."

"I never really expected you to talk about stuff like this, Karkat. Well, I did, but I thought it would be a lot more work."

The troll turned. John was watching him carefully, an interested look across his face. Well, maybe Karkat had been an idiot for too long. Maybe he just wanted to have some hope after the game fucked them over.

Maybe he was just being a better friend as well as a leader.

No, that was stupid. John was the friend leader, Karkat was just the idiot. The forceful slavedriver to John's fucking useless daydreaming, picture drawing, friend loving self.

"Get back to work, stop staring at me, you useless shithead," he muttered, shoving John's arm. The boy laughed again, shoving the troll back. It slowly degraded into a childish fight of pelting pieces of Earth at each other, that later Karkat knew he would deny happening.

Shit happened in the game, but maybe there was some reason to keep going. It was better than being alone. It wasn't as good as going home, but there was still worse shit that could happen. So maybe they'd just remember their friends and try and keep things together until they got home.

It seemed they'd be the ones who were probably unrecognizable when they got back, appreciated or not for their efforts. But that was a long way off, and the Earth did need cleaning. But maybe there was time to teach John not to mess with his fucking leader after all.

Karkat readied another handful of planets to lob at the boy.


	22. Fighting Back

684 Days, 00:45 Hours

Carefully balanced on a single, unfallen step, John paused from his work to again glance towards the clock. All Karkat's grumpy warnings about letting the game win and being productive, while on the back of his mind, weren't quite as worrying as what the boy was certain he was observing.

The clock was growing again. Of course it was.

After all, it wasn't like the room was giving them any slack. The fact there were steps missing on Alternia and Earth made everything that much more difficult, and on top of that, the game had decided it was a good time for revenge. Thankfully, not the world shaking variety it had tried before, but a work halting change in lighting.

Every few hours, it seemed, the place would either get brighter, or border on pitch black. Even right then, John was the only one working. Karkat's eyes couldn't handle the light, and John himself was useless when it got dark. For a lot of the time there was only one of them working.

And in John's case, it was always work balanced on this damn step. The height of it made John refuse to let the troll work there. One false step led to painful injury and potentially death. At least John could come back in a month if he died. Hopefully. Karkat had zero chance.

It was at least easier to work without his hood on. His arms were freer, and there was no worrying about tripping over it, which was especially concerning when you balanced yourself on a spot too thin to be balancing on. The game was damn cruel.

Careful to mind his feet, John placed the few remaining pieces he had where they were supposed to go. Rebuilding Alternia was a bit of a pain, but at least he mostly knew where this patch went.

Once all the pieces he had were down on the planet, John carefully rose to his feet. The next step was a bit of a jump, but one he had taken numerous times already in the past day. With a bit of wariness, he eyed the jump. It wasn't far. He had done this. With a deep breath, he launched forwards through the air.

Well, it wasn't that terrible. He stumbled a bit on the next few steps, but he was on his feet and he wasn't dead. And that was the worst gap - on this stair way, at least. Earth had its own holes and patches that weren't all that enjoyable to get around.

John squinted his eyes, running down the stairs, jumping the few gaps that remained. Karkat was potentially sorting, but there was a thin line between when the troll could and couldn't see when it got bright. Safety was the most important thing right then, with the stairs and the lighting. It certainly seemed like the game was trying to get back at them for getting so far, even in small ways.

He scoped out for the splash of grey, black, and red-brown that was going to be Karkat's annoyed self. It was still easy to pick out, even with the light. The boy shuffled himself over, being careful to dodge the pieces that the troll was surrounded in.

The closer he got, the more obvious it was that Karkat had been sorting Earth again, but had given up to curl into a ball and hide his face. John squatted down beside him, giving a small pat between the ears.

"Go the fuck back to work," he growled, shooing John away a bit. "It's too bright for me to join you. So get yourself back up that ladder across those ugly lumpy faced stairs and placed down some gogsmacked hives and trees."

"The clock's started getting bigger again, Karkat."

The troll turned, but through the better of it and kept his face down. "How large is it?"

"Not that big," John mused, playing absently with a patch of ocean he found lying on the ground. "Just different than regular, I suppose. Do you think...?"

"Four thirteen, right? That's the damn counter on this one."

John nodded, patting the troll absently for a moment before rising to his feet. There was a moment where he hesitated, unsure if it was best to leave Karkat, but the troll gave him a shove. Right, there was work to be done. And just because the game was dicking around didn't give them an excuse not to keep working.

Maybe it'd be dimmer later, and they could both get back to work. John made his way to the sorted Alternia pieces he had, scooping a few that were for his section. He gave a minor twirl on the control, shifting the planet ever so slightly in its place. Getting down was one thing, getting back up to that step was another.

But he set his shoulders back. If it was a battle of endurance, he and Karkat sure as hell weren't giving up. So long as they could rebuild the worlds, well, maybe everything else would start to be put back together too.


	23. Construction

702 Days, 10:00 Hours

The more time that passed, the more increasingly annoyed Karkat was by the way the game tried to slow down their efforts. The dimming lights had ceased, at least. For now. The troll guessed they'd be back just as randomly as they began and when they ceased. However, the fact that the lightshow had been replaced by the room shaking at random was not really much of a remarkable improvement.

On top of that, John had been entirely right when he said the clock was growing again, so the two of them knew they had a set time limit. At least the game had been kind enough to give them the fucking guideline for when the pieces would fall, but there wasn't gonna be anywhere to hide this time.

So the two of them trudged along, having Alternia mostly repaired. John was putting pieces down in a more difficult spot - Karkat hated when he did that, but it did make more sense - as the troll was placing pieces near the bottom. It became some kind of strange rhythm, placing a piece, checking the area around it and finding something to match, and then repeating.

For the most part John had completely ceased that damn muttering, and the two tended not to speak. There were only so many things you could say or do and for the most part the two of them had exhausted every topic. Besides, the silence wasn't nearly as painful or troublesome as it had been originally. Karkat was almost happy they were on the same page.

Except, of course, for the entire situation they were presently trapped in. That part pretty much was bullshit on a festering pile of decomposing garbage.

John was making his way down the stairs. He made thunking noises on the metal steps, larger ones when he had to jump over holes. There was a particularly loud one, and Karkat was going to comment on it when the shaking began again. He sat down, sighing.

It was really just plain annoying, kind of like the light thing had been. They couldn't do much work during it, and it made the stairs rattle, but it wasn't really enough to launch off the pieces. Just enough to make it impossible to place them.

So he sat, somewhat curled up, and waited. Some days he thought about his old friends, and other days he thought about Terezi. He didn't try and me a sentimental asshole about it, but the more time they spent here the more he kind of missed all of them. Well, most of them. Slowly, though, his thoughts turned to wondering why the hell this was taking so long to end.

There was another clattering, and John jumped off the stairs, overbalancing slightly when he hit the ground. He seemed to have grown again, and that damn fuzz on his face was starting up again. Hell, this kid was almost completely intolerable.

Karkat wasn't sure if John was walking weirdly because of the shaking or because he was an idiot, but soon the boy had plopped himself down beside the troll, waiting for the shaking to cease. It was still irritating, even if they couldn't do anything about it. Even the rattling staircase made speaking not worth the effort.

So maybe it was just as bad, if not worse than the fucking lights. Whatever. As Karkat grumbled inwardly, the shaking slowed to a stop. Both sat there for a moment, in case the shaking began again, but when it didn't John scrambled to his feet.

"Wait," Karkat growled. "You need to-"

"Shave, I know. I've got like twenty pieces left and I'm in a tricky spot. I'll get to it afterwards, okay?"

John gave a smile, patted the troll's head, and left to go scoop pieces. John had been a pretty good worker as of late. Even with the sketchy clock, they were both working hard and it was getting done really fast. Karkat was...impressed, he guessed? Fuck, that was stupid.

So, the shaking being done meant he should get back to work, too. He looked at the pieces he had left, and the patch he was working on. It didn't seem too hard, and there wasn't a lot left. Maybe after he'd take over for John when the idiot was shaving. He didn't climb the ladder too much, but for Earth they'd need to have both of them working in dangerous spots anyway.

"Karkat, quit slacking!" John teased, standing on the stairs over the troll's head. "Gosh, you've barely moved!"

"If this is because of all those times you did fuck all?"

"It is!"

"The you can go stuff a planet up your ass and let it rot there."

John laughed, continuing up the stairs, as Karkat returned to working. Alright, so it was shitty and repetitive and he missed his friends like fuck. But John was being pretty cheery lately, and that seemed to make things a bit better.

It only took a few moments of work for the troll to fall back into the rhythm he had developed, placing pieces down one by one, with only one quick glance at the ever growing clock.


	24. Fifteen

730 Days, 00:18 Hours

Well, Alternia was pretty much finished now. Besides a few hard to reach spots John would be getting at later, the planet was completed. Karkat had been working really hard lately, and so had John. His eyes drifted up to the clock. It had been a while working, and he wasn't even sure what day it was anymore.

It took a moment for the numbers to register. After all, the clock was constantly growing larger, and John needed to take a moment to relax after seeing their size. It was beginning to worry him, but it wasn't the right day yet for it to fall. That was still...a hundred days away? That was good. A faint smile crossed his face. They still had time to work on Earth, get another head start.

The boy stretched, shuffling down the stairs carefully. Karkat was somewhere below, either sorting or placing pieces on Earth already. It was a bit too dangerous for the troll to be doing some of the placing on Alternia, even if it was going to be worse on Earth. There were steps missing in large chunks, and some were rather rickety. There was only so much that spinning could do to help.

By the time John hit the floor, his smile was almost gone. Sometimes he wished he could turn his mind off. The endless possibilities about things that could go wrong were kind of weighing, and it wasn't something he wanted to deal with. He rubbed his face, then his eyes. Well, he'd talk over the plan with Karkat and see how things were going.

The troll was perched in a pile of miniatures, placing them into different piles, a small patch on the Earth in front of him colourful and filled. John tried to remember who had filled in that gap the last time, but the memories of placing the miniatures all seemed to blur together in one big nothing. There was no real way of knowing who had done it anymore, but it was nice to see his planet being fixed up again.

"Hey Karkat! It's really coming along here, isn't it?" he greeted, crouching down beside the troll. "I mean we've gotten a lot further than last time I came down."

The troll eyed him suspiciously. John couldn't help but raise an eyebrow. He didn't often get that kind of look, whatever it meant. It wasn't really angry, it was more...wary?

"Yeah, we're moving along at a bright chipper fucking pace," the troll replied, still holding John's gaze. The boy was the first to break eye contact, shifting to look at the pieces, flipping two of them in their place, checking them, all the while still feeling the red eyes digging into the back of his head.

Finally, the irritation began to eat at him, and it wasn't long before he turned to face the troll again. "What?"

"What? What do you fucking mean by _what_?"

"What the hell are you doing staring at me?" John got to his feet, looking down at the troll. Sure, Karkat had gotten taller, but John was still tall enough to glower down at him. "If you've got something to say, say it."

"Do you know what day it is? Shit, John, I thought you were observant for like, a fucking minute."

Well, yeah, duh he knew what day it was. He glanced up at the numbers again, making a show of it. "Why, it seems to be day seven three zero, Karkat!"

The troll glared, shoving John aside to get back to work. "You're such a shitstain, Egbert. You're the one who knows how fucking long years are, aren't you? Do some math and use that think pan of yours for something other than idiocy, if you can manage that."

As Karkat returned to placing pieces, John studied the time again. What was the big deal, days passed all the time here. Besides, it's not like...wait. Math. A year.

Oh.

"It's my birthday," he stated lamely.

"Good fucking observation."

"We've been here two years."

Damn, he didn't really think about the days any more, but when something like this came up...it kind of hurt. It had been two years, and they had almost been home, but of course the game had ruined everything and they were still here. After two years of nothing but puzzles and shaking rooms and miniatures and trouble.

There was something on his arm and he was pulled to the ground. Karkat was sitting there, silent, watching the windy boy from the corner of his eye. John didn't speak for a moment. He didn't want to be another year older. Not here.

"So, are you going to be an ass like you were on your last birthday, or are you going to man the fuck up and get back to work?"

"Can I do both?" John asked quietly, pulling his knees to his chest. "I just...want a moment. I guess it just makes me miss everyone."

"Everything makes you miss everyone. That's why we never get any work done."

That wasn't true, and John wasn't feeling up for a debate anymore. For the most part, he just felt a bit deflated. He closed his eyes, thinking back to his friends and his dad. It was weird and lonely not to have them there anymore. Two entire years without seeing them. Was he ever going to get back?

He took a deep breath, glancing over the troll. Karkat didn't look too happy either. It was just hard, heavy thoughts all around, it seemed.

But, the troll got to his feet, brushing off his dirty sweater as best he could, and offered a hand to John. "Get up. Don't fucking cry. We get back when we finish, remember?"

John ran a hand through his hair before grabbing Karkat's, pulling himself to his feet. "Gotcha, Karkat."

"Now, get back to work and stop wasting your gogdamn life being sad over things."

John flashed a small smile. Karkat was a shithead, sure, but it worked. That didn't mean he wasn't going to think about his friends, though. In fact, it was probably going to be the forefront of his thoughts for the next little while. But he had to multitask. Getting older meant growing up, after all. There wasn't a lot of time to be selfish anymore.


	25. Test of Faith

791 Days, 14:45 Hours

God fucking shit, Karkat was getting tired of this place.

It was one thing to have to place down the pieces all over again. The troll could get over that. Slowly. It might take a while, but he was stuck doing it, and that was the end of the story. But it was another thing entirely to have to do it through the fucking impossible terrain that the room was giving them.

His legs were pressed tightly to his chest as the entire room around him shook. Metal rattled nearby, the stairs practically screaming their displeasure at being shaken. Karkat hoped John wasn't dead up there.

The shaking had continued, it seemed, despite the breaks they had gotten from it. It was sporadic, uncontrolled, and getting a bit stronger each day. He had no idea what would happen if it got bad enough to shake the pieces of the planets, but so far that hadn't happened yet. Nevertheless, he and John took turns between the shakes and placing together Earth to make sure everything was still in place.

Even then, though, it was annoying. The clock was growing steadily, and they both knew they didn't have long before something happened again. Karkat thought it might have been something new that would come, but it was hard to tell. Things changed all the time in this gogdamned hellhole that it was pretty much pointless to think about.

He just didn't want to have to rebuild the planets _again_.

A shuddering crash made him jump. He stumbled to the ground, head bashing against the floor. He scowled, forcing himself up as quickly as he could go. It was hard to tell if his vision was blurring or the room was just shaking so much. Either way, from his spot, he couldn't tell what had made the noise. Great, fucking perfect.

He curled up again as best he could and stared outward. His thoughts drifted towards his uncomfortable, blood stained sweater, his horrific mess of a haircut, and how slowly awkward he was getting. What the hell was it gonna be like if he got back home?

Sometimes he hated thinking about shit like this but he couldn't really help it. He couldn't place pieces, he couldn't even fucking get up without falling over with all this damned shaking. So, he kind of just sat like a fucking useless wart, and began to think about how fucking much he wanted to see his friends, and what the hell was gonna happen with him and Terezi. Shit was going to go down probably.

But between those thoughts and the damned shaking, he realized he still had no idea what had made the crash. John could be dead and bleeding on the other side of the planet and the troll wouldn't have known until the next fucking week, for all the shaking that was going on.

So instead, he kept his face on his knees, took a few breaths, and waited. And waited. And gogdamn if it didn't feel like years until the shaking finally stopped. His eyes flicked to the clock. Two hours had passed. Two hours of wasted, fucking wasted time. They still had the Earth to slap together and he had spent two _hours_ on the ground. Hell.

The troll scrambled to his feet, skidding his way around the side of the planet. There was no dead body or pool of blood. Just a single step from the stairs. He gave a small sigh of relief as the clattering of a boy jumping down steps alerted him to John.

"The fuck?" Karkat questioned, jabbing the step with a toe.

"It was loose," John panted, catching his breath from the run down the stairs. "Like, for a bit now. I always skipped it. It just dislodged during that shaking is all."

"Yeah, well, next time tell me these things so I don't have a panic attack in the middle of a shitstorm," Karkat snapped. He rubbed his eyes a bit, examining the Earth. "How's it going up there?"

John shuffled around pieces, skidding his feet into them. "Slowly. It's pretty hard to reach some of these places. I'm doing my best though."

Karkat nodded, glancing around the bottom of the planet where he had been working. They hadn't started on the oceans yet - those things were fucking annoying as shit do to, but the land masses were coming together a bit quicker than before. A bit. When they had time to work, that was. There was so much shit going on...argh.

"Get back up there. We don't have time to sit on our asses anymore."

John gave a mock salute, and ruffled the trolls' hair. Karkat shot first him, then the clock, then the photo world, a glare. Just, fuck. He did not want to have to deal with this crap.

As John made his way back to the steps, Karkat busied himself grabbing some pieces off the floor, sorting them, before heading back to his own work station. He might only have five more minutes before he was interrupted again, so there was no time to go back to his thoughts. Not for now.


	26. Double

825 Days, 23:06 Hours

John leaned back a bit, resting himself against Karkat's back. There was a slight grumble of complaint. It was, unfortunately, too bright for him to work right then, and with only an hour left until they were forced to undergo some trial, John had arbitrarily called a break.

"You have work you can be finishing," Karkat growled. His face was pressed onto his knees, and John knew his eyes were probably tight shut.

"I know. But it can get a bit difficult for me, too, with this light," John replied. He gave a small sigh, shielding his eyes as he looked upwards. The clock was barely visible with the light obscuring the numbers, but it didn't seem like they had that much time left. Less than the hour now.

"Do you think it's gonna be the same as four thirteen?" John asked.

"Hope not. But it's not like we have anywhere left to hide, so..."

"Yeah."

John picked at his nails. Sure, it could be the same thing, and that was bad. But it could also be something worse. There was no way of knowing, and the wait was getting troublesome. Maybe he should have just kept working up until a closer time. He should have. But now he was lying here and it was pretty much pointless to get back up.

He maybe should have felt scared. Twitchy. But he was pretty calm. It weirded him out a bit. Here he was, lying back on Karkat, eyes slowly closing against the brightness of the room.

Snapping them open, he scanned for the time. It was blocked by the light.

Well, there was nothing really to do then. John smoothed his pants, played with his hair, or sat still. Karkat would occasionally grumble, but barely moved. John hoped the waiting was the worst part.

His thoughts drifted to the planets. Earth was a pain to work on. There was so much jumping, and moving, and stretching. And Karkat was gonna be done the safer areas soon, too. It would be faster having them both working, but John had proved that a fall could be deadly. Man, it seemed like forever ago he had died. Maybe it had been a long time.

The lights began to dim, and before long John tapped the troll on the shoulder. Karkat shifted, leaning back against the boy. They both looked up towards the clock. Ten minutes left. The suspense might have been deadly if John hadn't wanted it just to be over with.

"So I'll see you back here soon, right?" John joked.

"Probably. Unless we die."

"Right."

John closed his eyes. For ten, long minutes, there was nothing but the sound of their slow breaths. He waited. And waited.

The same large, cracking noise he had heard before. Perfect. He glanced up, taking in the frozen clock, and the falling black pieces. One landed beside them, melting into the ground. Chunks hit the stairs, the worlds, the floor.

Another glance up. All he saw was black. John closed his eyes again.

It felt like only a second before they fluttered open again, and he froze. Karkat was gone, sure, but that wasn't the surprising part. This was most assuredly his house. He was on his bed, with the same graffitied posters he had left there as a child. It felt so long ago. The bed was soft, and clean.

Far too good to be true.

All the same, John shifted his somewhat dirty, bloody self off the now soiled sheets, dragging his feet through what he could only assume was a memory. There was no smell of baking, no sound of anyone else around. He made his way down the stairs, one at a time.

Everything was eerily still. The air was frozen, the steps made no noise, and everything was just a bit too...clean. He didn't like it. Which meant maybe it was time to do his best to leave.

He skidded through the living room, doing his best not to look at anything around. It was just another mind trick the game was playing at, after all. A bit different than the last time but not enough to make him really question what was going on.

John swung open the door, and almost fell into thin air. There was nothing on the other side of the door. Simply blackness. He took a small step backwards.

"You better not mess this up."

Rose. It was only really a matter of time before someone had shown up. It made such a good way of trying to get under his skin, after all. John gave a small smile.

"Is this what happens if we've messed up with the pieces?"

"Essentially."

He turned. Rose was still covered in blood, a bone sticking out ever so slightly from the side of her neck. John felt his face pale. It didn't matter if it was just an illusion, and that it wasn't really Rose. It was still hard to see her injured like that.

"So, are you the game, then? Is that who I'm taking to right now?" John pressed. Rose shrugged in reply, lounging down on his couch.

"Who do you think I am?"

"Something between that and a figment of my imagination."

She gestured for him to walk closer. John didn't want to. Her wounds looked so fresh, and her skin so pale. It was frightening on a different level than he had expected. He hung in the doorframe for a moment, debating his options.

Dave hovered by the entrance to the kitchen. He hadn't been there just a second ago. John's eyes darted around, catching a glimpse of Jade perched on the steps, as well as someone going into his father's study. John clenched his fists, and walked towards the couch where the fake Rose sat smirking.


	27. Double, Part 2

826 Days, ? Hours

It was official. Karkat was in some strange, horrible version of hell that he had not yet encountered from the game. His hands shook. Sweat beaded on his brow that he quickly wiped away.

He was standing on a mountain in what he could only guess was some version of the Land of Pulse and Haze. Black earth, red lava like water, the whole wonderful fuckton of amazing he had experienced during his session, come back for him. What the shit had happened to some black, empty abyss John had described to him? Just having people berate at him was one thing. Karkat could manage.

Being stuck here again was another. The place of all his leaderly failings. Where it all began. He wasn't exactly sure how long he was going to be stuck there, but he was guessing the full day. John had been out for almost the entire amount of time when he got hit before, after all.

Carefully, he made his way around, stumbling and tripping down the side of the mountain. It was obviously fake - no mountain in his actual land had behaved like this. Where were the falling rocks? The jutting edges? This place was a pretty cheap imitation, even by his low standards. Was he _supposed_ to actually believe he was there?

The more he wandered, the less like hell it felt like and the more it felt like an inconvenience. Sure, he wasn't exactly fond of it here, and he wasn't at all used to navigating around there, but maybe...it wasn't as awful as it could have been?

"The bad stuff's probably coming up," he found himself muttering. Great, turning into John when he was all alone in some weirdass fake planet. He hit the bottom of the mountain. There wasn't much around. Karkat kept walking, cautiously glancing to either side as he proceeded.

It wasn't long before he was _sure_ something was wrong. Not just the fakeness of the location, but something else entirely. The sky looked strange. The places he walked seemed like they were strained and old. Something was going on that he didn't quite understand. The game seemed to be having problems holding this place together.

Karkat smirked.

His hive was a beacon on the horizon, but he wasn't certain it was somewhere he wanted to go. There was nothing really happening where he was, but the hive seemed like too much of a trap to head into. It was a good maker in the distance, but the troll didn't think his options were good if he went there. Wandering, for now, seemed like the best option.

Time dragged. Maybe it would be better to have something going on. Have some trolls call him out for his failings, fight him, hell, even an earthquake would be enough. There was literally nothing but land and red on this rock of fictional space. The more he walked, the tighter his hands clenched into fists. Maybe his trial was just wasting time. That was what was really happening, after all.

A footstep echoed from behind him, scraping against the fraying surface of the planet. The troll froze. He took a deep breath, letting it out as a sigh. So there was someone else here. Great. Karkat almost didn't want to bet on who it was before turning around. A quick glance told them whoever it was, they were hiding. Perfect.

He kept moving, listening to the steps track him. There had to be more than one person back there. The steps came from too many places at once for it to be one person. His fingers twitched. Karkat took a step forward, to spin around and leap back. The footsteps grew loud and fast as he spun around a rock, catching a glimpse of black and grey.

He picked up his speed. The footsteps grew closer and louder. The second figure was following him. He almost didn't care. It was exhausting, running like this after so long of only placing tiny pieces. Shit, was that someone there?

He jumped over a pile, turning right fast enough to see the figure. He didn't bother taking in anything before tackling them to the ground. The floor groaned at the force. A mass of black hair greeted him. Oranges splayed under him as he slowly sat back. A grin was wide across blue lips.

"Miss me, leader?" Vriska teased, sitting up as well. Karkat shuffled a bit away. That wasn't what he had expected at all.

Vriska raised an eyebrow. "Lame! You almost entertained me for a minute. Now I see you're still just a boring nobody."

Okay, it was just Vriska. The blue stain on her chest was a bit distracting, but it wasn't that awful. No big deal. He shuffled back a bit, hitting something. He glanced up.

Terezi stood over him, leaning down, arms stitched back together. He almost gagged. Blood dripped from the stitches. No. No, this was not happening.

"Karkles!" she greeted, grinning. "You're here just in time! This place is going to disappear soon, isn't it?"

This wasn't his Terezi. He got to his feet. Another scan of the area. Eridan rested on a rock nearby, cape hiding most of his body. Gamzee sat cross legged on a rock, a small smirk splayed across messy make up. Yellow eyes glowed at him from a small cave. His breaths were short and hollow.

"The fuck do you all want?" he demanded. Shit, he couldn't lose it. They weren't really there, and he just had to keep that in mind. Talk to the game, not to his friends. "Is this some sick fucking trick of yours? It's not gonna work!"

"What do you expect to happen upon completion of your task?" Kanaya's voice carried forward, but he could not see her. Damn. The troll kept turning, meeting the gaze of those slowly closing in around him. He should have gone to his fucking hive.

"Fix the worlds, John and I go home."

"What if you are separated?" Vriska jeered at him, still at her spot.

"Fuck it. We know it can happen."

"Why do the worlds need to be rebuilt at all, bro? Seems like a motherfucking waste," Gamzee continued, standing up and approaching. Keep calm. This wasn't real.

Shit, when had he become scared?

He was constantly moving his eyes. Gamzee was close. Terezi was still hovering behind him. Even Eridan had gotten up to his feet. The floor actually creaked beneath them. The rock. It was supposed to be rock. The game wasn't holding this together. As Aradia morphed into the scene, a crack appeared on the ground.

Maybe there were just too many people for the game to handle. His eyes followed the crack. It grew as Nepeta slithered out. Maybe it wasn't hopeless. Maybe he could do something himself.

"Well what are you waiting for then?" Karkat shouted. "Come on. You want a fight? You want to really scare me? Fucking come a bit closer in then!"

Sollux. And Tavros, too, not far behind. Karkat clenched his fists, watching the crack grow bigger, and slowly but surely the other trolls seemed to notice.

They still approached. The game was stupid. So, so stupid. Karkat Vantas was done being fucked with. These weren't his friends. This was some trick to get him to lose his cool, and stop him from winning. Like shit that was happening.

He dashed for the growing crack, though the others were hesitant to follow. Noises of wrenching metal and cracking earth filled his ears, drowning out any other noises. Terezi seemed to be talking to him. It hurt, just ever so slightly, to have to watch her go. But Karkat couldn't stay here. He jammed his foot down over and over.

A shattering like broken class filled his ears, and he plummeted down the new hole into a black abyss. His eyes closed tightly on themselves, and he hit the ground with a thud.

Karkat didn't hesitate to open his eyes again. White greeted his eyes, as well as a large, completed Alternia. Well, at least he was back.

His eyes drifted. John was still out. The day was just barely over, with the clock reading 827. The idiot would be back soon enough.

Karkat rose to his feet, brushing off his clothes. When he lifted his eyes again, he noticed a blurry...figure, was it? Was there someone fucking here?

His face fell. He turned and began to shake John, desperately glancing between them. The figure grew closer and closer. John didn't wake up.

"Fuck it John come back!" Karkat kept on struggling, punching the boy's arm, fearfully glancing over his shoulder.

Aradia met his eyes for a moment before disappearing.

Karkat had no fucking clue what was going on anymore.


	28. The Newcomers

831 Days, 6:07 Hours

It was unnerving to work with someone watching him, John was finding out. And it was a lot harder to work when the person wasn't Karkat, and there to fix his mistakes or get him to do his job. No, that wasn't what was going on at all. It had only been a few days, but neither of them were quite used to what was happening now.

Behind him floated the dead body of Terezi, her blind eyes still tracking his movements, and her body caked in the dried blood from the final fight. Every few minutes, John would steal a glance over his shoulder, praying that she would disappear. She had been hovering there for the past two hours, and it was beginning to get unnerving.

It had started with Aradia, at first. Karkat had informed John that she had been there for a few moments before he woke up. Dave had appeared for a bit, sitting on top of the desert planet, and Terezi had arrived a couple hours ago, first by Karkat and then by John. It was unnerving as hell.

Game mechanic or not, John wasn't pleased. These weren't their real friends, after all. But they were close enough to make it unbearable to keep looking at them. He knew Karkat had a guilt trip shortly after Terezi arrived, but it had been quickly shut down. He slammed down a piece, cutting himself slightly as he grabbed the next one. Shit, keep it together.

"John, get your ass down here."

There was the summons. John rose, stretched, and took a few steps before leaping to the rest of the staircase, jumping and skidding his way down the planet. Karkat was in a pile of pieces, ocean and desert alike around him. He didn't seem pleased. His red eyes narrowed as John approached.

"What's with the-"

"Terezi followed you down."

A quick glance over his shoulder and the sight of teal blood confirmed this. John shuddered slightly.

"What's up, though?"

But, before he answered, John glanced around and realized what was going on. It was a tad bit too dark there, and perhaps Karkat had noticed the change in lighting before he had. Well, that was just perfect. His work was delayed by both by the hovering, fake dead troll and now he wasn't going to be able to go back up until it ceased getting dark.

Karkat gave a sigh as John settled down, sitting and picking at an older scab on his palm. The darkness settled in quickly, as the troll set up the stairs. John, with failing vision, saw the outline of Terezi sputter and fade out. One less thing to worry about for now.

With the last of his vision he gave a small sort to the pieces, but had to stop when he could no longer make out colours. At that point, he buried his face in his legs, giving a sigh. Waiting was the worst. It made him feel so useless.

"John."

His head snapped up. Had Karkat just called him?

"Karkat?" he shouted, eyes straining in the dark. "You out there?"

"What the fuck is it?" came the voice from around the planet. Gruff, angry. Definitely Karkat.

"Did you just call me?"

"No, you shit. Stop going crazy and just wait."

Alright, he was just set on edge from the people floating around and the darkness. He had to keep his cool. Shit, John was better than this, after all! He took a deep sigh. Alright. Just a few more hours of waiting, then he'd go back to his spot and be able to finish up.

"John, I'm here."

Alright, that was _not_ Karkat. It wasn't even a male voice. Shit.

"Are you hearing this, Karkat?"

"Do you want me to get my ass back there and smack you? They can't talk and Terezi's gone, Egbert. Calm the fuck down."

John was caught between believing that it was all in his mind and thinking the game was completely fucking with him. It was one or the other. Even if it was the game, was it real? Was someone there? And why couldn't he recognize the voice?

"It's Jade, silly!"

But that wasn't what Jade sounded like. Was it?

"John, are you listening to me?"

He closed his eyes. That wasn't Jade. Not at all. Whatever it was pretending to be Jade continued to chatter around him. This was worse than just a floating figure. There was no one around him. Maybe he was going crazy after all.


	29. Boiling Point

897 Days, 03:34 Hours

His eye twitched. The fingers that curled around the piece tightened further down on it, and when he placed it, it went too hard and it snapped out a piece beside it. Karkat grabbed it, throwing it back up on the planet where it had fallen. His legs sat across two stairs, with a gap on either side.

The conditions were bad enough as it was, without this damn thing in his mind.

"That's not where the piece goes, bro."

He didn't give a response. He never responded. The voice, while close, was sure as hell _not_ what Gamzee sounded like. It was infuriating beyond measure, and the troll didn't know how much longer he was going to last.

The floaters were still around, too. Kanaya had been hovering around John lately, but he was a bit further up and around the other side of the planet right then. So, that was only one person bugging him right then. John could suffer. Fuck, Karkat was just so fed up by all this random bulge spewed nonsense that had started.

Floating around, being annoying, was one thing. But these fake voices in their heads was just insulting. It wasn't even really their friends. That wasn't how Gamzee talked, and it wasn't what he sounded like. This game just decided to push the envelope even further to drive them crazy, to make them stop.

So he did his best to work ignoring it. But every time he heard that fake, spoor slime filled voice, it made him cringe. It wasn't Gamzee, and it was so damn insulting to him, and worst of all the more he hated it, the more that meant the game was beating him. Karkat didn't want to lose. Not when they were getting so far.

Another piece slammed down from his hands. 'Gamzee' gave a laugh, and Karkat kept working, examining each block of the land before placing down another part of this place. Some country he hadn't bothered to remember the name of from last time. It didn't matter, anyway. When this was done, they probably weren't even going to be together anymore. And if they were, why the hell would he even need to know geography?

"Bro, pay attention."

Damnit, no, he was _not_ listening to this voice. He was working. That was all he was going to do, and that was the end of the story. Karkat kept his thoughts straight. Focused. He grinded sharp teeth against each other, the noise helping to block a bit of the noise. But 'Gamzee' rambled on, and on, and on.

He reached by his feet. But there was nothing there. Confused, he glanced down, but he had placed all the pieces he had brought up with him. Well, it meant he was working faster than he had originally thought. With a shuffle, he got to his feet. A step back.

His feet left the ground for a moment.

"Watch your footing."

_That_ made him stumble forward a bit. The gap wasn't large, and there was time to recover before the next one. He spun to glare over his shoulder before he remembered that there was nothing there to glare at. It was all in his own head.

"Karkat?"

Well, at least it was a real person this time. "What?"

"Are you going down?"

"Yeah."

"Grab me a few more pieces, kay? I'll meet you where you're working to take them."

Lazy ass. Whatever. He could carry a few more than his back up the stairs, he guessed. The stairs were annoying enough, might as well only be one of them going down. As he spiraled down, he could occasionally here a faint humming. If John was back to doing that, Karkat would smack him. With the sickle. End of story.

Their piles were close to the base, so that they wouldn't have to travel so far to get them. Planning ahead. He scooped a few from his own pile, and then a few from John's as well. Little sharp edges dug into his flesh, but it wasn't unbearable at least. He glanced back at the staircase. There were just...so many.

Whatever. Better than nothing. Better than being trapped here forever.

"Time to go back up, huh? What a motherfu-"

"Shut up! For the sake of my gogdamn thinkpan not melting into a blubbering piss stain, shut up and get out of my head!"

Karkat breathed heavily, his nostrils flaring. He could feel the anger burn hot in his veins. There was no response for a minute. He waited another.

Dead silence.

He took a step up, and then another. It might have been an overreaction, maybe, but it had worked. So it didn't really matter. The steps rung out as he slammed his feet upwards. He stepped a bit lighter when the creaking got a bit too loud. They couldn't lose more steps. It would end even worse than his mind going, most likely.

John was, in fact, waiting by the spot Karkat worked at when he finally got back up the stairs. Kanaya hung around his neck, slender white, seethrough arms draping. John looked uncomfortable, to say the least. He scratched the side of his head with long fingers. Karkat offered him the pieces. He collected them in a fist.

"You holding out okay?" John asked. Karkat glared.

"Peachy. The image of health."

"I hate the voices too. They're invasive."

Invasive would have been like, third on Karkat's description list, after 'the worst fucking possible thing living in his brain outside cancer' and 'nook scented horror'. But he guessed John was right in that sense.

"Get back to-"

"Work. Got it, red leader."

John turned. Karkat sat himself down. He placed a piece.

"We're back here, huh motherfucker?"

Karkat bit his lip hard enough to draw blood. He was never going to escape.


	30. Repetition

934 Days, 22:54 Hours

John was practically giddy with excitement. He slammed a few pieces down, tiptoes balancing on the single step near the top of the earth. His fingers almost slipped around the pieces, but he made a scramble to avoid dropping them. It was a weird sensation. His breaths were short and a grin was splattered across his face he couldn't quite remove. Even with Rose hovering around his head. It almost didn't matter.

They were so close to being done. Karkat had one small section left near the base, and John had just this one on the dangerous steps left. It was just enough to give them a bit of hope. It had taken so little time to catch up! Even with the fading lights, and the people, and the voices, they had kept working.

The troll had growled a lot, and John too wasn't feeling on top of it all for a while. But now...with victory looming, there was little reason to not try and be happy. Sure, there were a thousand other things that could go wrong. John wasn't forgetting them, especially considering his companion at the moment. But still, he could try and cling to the small hope he had, right?

"You're still slacking. At this rate you're going to die of old age somehow before completion," Rose chuttered, flipping upsidedown before his eyes. He tried to shove her away, but his hand, of course, went right through the projection. Rose remained. John felt his smile falter slightly, but he began to place the last few pieces.

Small clacks as the pieces attached were not quite enough to drown out her voice.

"John, you are really so useless working alone. None of this is going to accomplish anything. Just because you've gotten ahead doesn't mean you've beaten the room. And don't act like you can't hear me."

Yeah, there was no way he was pretending he could hear her though. Or replying. There was a lot at stake now, and Karkat was depending on him. When they finished they could go. That was the only truth that could occur.

It was what they _needed_ to happen.

John's vision was blocked by violet eyes and pale, thin skin. His eyes closed slightly as he shook his head.

"Look at me, John. This won't work."

He refused to open his eyes, clenching his fist around the pieces in his hand. The game was tricking him. It was making him stop working.

"John!"

"Oh fuck off! You aren't even Rose!"

John clamped his mouth shut, eyes fluttering open. Damn, he hadn't meant to respond. Rose seemed to be a bit confused, though the expression was mixed. She hovered, before flying around his back, settling probably around his shoulder. John didn't glance around to see. He went back to placing pieces.

They had saved these slivers for the reasons that they were a bit more dangerous to work on. Karkat was balanced somewhere too, a bit further below. John wasn't super happy about that, but if it meant getting done Karkat had decided to take the risk.

Despite the new company, though, it wasn't any better. Whoever visited was discouraging and awful, and barely a shell of who they really were. It gave John a chance to see the other trolls, sure, but...it wasn't really worth it. Not with the annoyance they brought with them.

His fingers reached out, securing themselves around a single piece. Blue eyes glanced down in surprised joy. There was only one piece in his hand. After this he was done. And, if Karkat was finished too...

Furiously looking, John noted the one empty space and slammed down the piece. He hurriedly glanced around the room. No changes. That was okay. Surely it just meant Karkat wasn't done yet.

John lept a few steps, slamming his chest hard as he caught the steps leading downwards. His legs swung into nothing for a moment, before he hauled his body upwards. It was mostly hopping for the next few steps, but he never fell. He couldn't fall. They were so close to being done and they could go home and-

"Slow the fuck down!" Karkat shrieked. John failed to do so. He crashed headlong into the troll, slamming them both back down onto the two steps surrounded by gaps. John skidded, grabbing the one edge with a hand and the troll's sweater with the other. They both sat, half off the steps. Karkat's red and yellow eyes were narrowed.

"The fuck are you doing, trying to kill me?"

"Sorry!"

The two shifted, taking up the two steps. John's long legs sprawled over the edge, and Karkat sat huddled as close to the middle as possible.

"Are you done?"

"Yeah!" John felt the grin break out over his face. Karkat's face dropped. A faint scowl appeared across his tight lips. John faltered. "Um, shouldn't we be happy...?"

"I'm done too, John. Why the fuck has nothing happened."

Hope shattered in John's chest, blanking his thoughts and wiping his mind. "What."

"I'm fucking done too! And nothing's changed. _Nothing_."

"We must have missed something. A piece, a spot. Something has to be missing. We're right. There's just-"

One look at Karkat's dreary face was enough to silence John on the spot. His stomach did flops, and rage boiled under his skin. They had _finished!_ They had to be done!

John got to his feet, the good mood shrugging off him with the leap down to the next staircase. He almost flew from the steps, leaping off the side of the world when he could land safely. The white floor glared back at him. There had to be a piece. A sign. Something they had missed.

But there was nothing. John bit his lip, wanting something to change. He looked at the clock. He looked at the four planets. He looked at the unhappy troll slowly walking down the steps. He even checked the controls, to see if anything had happened. Nothing.

"What the fuck are we going to do?" he snapped, turning on the troll. He glared down and Karkat looked back up, face almost shifting into resignation. John grabbed his shoulders. "Something has to happen! We can't be wrong. We just can't."

"Maybe we just beat the clock," Karkat muttered. "Maybe nothing's gonna happen until it hits a certain time. So don't throw a nook licking hissy fit until we know for _sure_ nothing's going to happen."

"Time? But we're done!"

"We never knew for sure something would happen!" Karkat shouted. "For fuck's sake John I'm just as confused as you are and I'll be damned if I'm not upset! You're just busy not being a fucking optimist so I decided, why can't I try and shine a wiggler's asslight on this? Just let my fucking arms go!"

John didn't let go. Karkat didn't flinch away. They just kept staring at each other, as Rose slowly floated down back to the floor beside them.


	31. Empty

961 Days, 01:34 Hours

"We're going to die here, aren't we?"

Usually, Karkat would have at least made an effort to smack John over that. Reprimand him. But it was probably a joke, and Karkat didn't feel like moving. He'd gotten rather comfortable lying on the floor. Staring at the ceiling. Doing shit all as there continued to be shit all that he could do. Slowly but surely getting angrier.

"At this rate, yes, we fucking are."

The clock ticked silently overhead. Karkat watched the numbers slowly change. It was the only thing left to do, after all. They had spent the past thirty days going over every piece on the worlds. But it went fast when everything was right. Every single piece had been right. And it wasn't worth another look because that _had_ been their another look and fucking hell, this game was the worst.

John shifted beside him, and Karkat flashed his eyes over to the boy. His face was getting a bit thinner, little by little. He sure as hell looked older than when they started. Karkat rubbed his own chin for a moment, before closing his eyes and taking a breath. This kind of bulge garbled observations only came because he had nothing else he could do.

"I mean we've just been waiting. For hours. We're gonna die of lethargy or whatever it is before the timer hits."

"John, stop your gogdamn mindless blabbering, lie your assback down on the floor and wait for the creep of the eternal embrace _silently_ before I cut your time short myself."

John laughed. "Someone's pissed."

"Damn straight I'm pissed."

John didn't lie back down. Karkat opened his eyes again. Barely any time had passed, and the clock kept ticking away. Fine, let it. Karkat narrowed his eyes. His hands curled into fists. He was getting beyond irate at this point. This fucking game just existed now to enrage him.

"Do you think it's actually gonna work? Like, a timer? What are we gonna do if we're here for the rest of ever?"

"Do we have to wonder about that _now_?" Karkat muttered. He covered his eyes with his hands, giving them a rub. "Look, it hasn't even been fifty days yet. Calm your fucking imagination down."

"But what about when it _has_ been fifty days? How long after that?"

"If I fucking _knew_, John, I wouldn't be lying on the floor, would I?"

John lay back down. Karkat kept his fists over his eyes, doing his best not to groan in frustration. There was no way there were going to last doing nothing. No way in hell.

Instead, Karkat tried not to think about things. About how fucking close they were, how slowly time passed, how they were totally completely right and how could they still even be trapped here? He missed Terezi. The real Terezi, not some fake version of her that hovered around.

Even with his mutant blood he was beginning to miss Alternia, too. At least there he had a home. And friends. Shit, if they were all dead, or if they were there without them...Karkat didn't know what he was going to do. Not that it really mattered, since at this rate, he was never going to get a chance to leave the fucking room, let alone see anyone he used to know.

"Karkat?"

"What now?"

"...I hate white."

"Yeah, same. I am never having a single white wall anywhere I live after this."

John gave a bitter laugh. "My house is white."

"Paint that hovel the moment you get home. Use dirt if you have to. Hire some wigglers and get some assistance."

Another laugh, this one a bit brighter than the last. At least John could cheer himself up a bit over this situation. He began to whistle a bit, and Karkat almost bit his lip to keep from yelling at him. Music was nice. It wasn't the silence. Or waiting. And it wasn't talking about shit that weighed on his mind.

Karkat checked the time every so often. Sometimes an hour had passed. Sometimes only a minute. It was painful, and awful, and god damn, he wanted something to do so badly.

"It's bad when we miss putting pieces up, huh?" John muttered. He was finally beginning to sound as annoyed as Karkat felt. The troll grunted a reply. "I mean, shit, it was something to do. And we don't even have chalk anymore to draw on-"

The boy stopped taking. Karkat glanced over, the boy's gaze set somewhere in the distance as he pressed himself up on scrawny elbows. Karkat grumbled, sat up, and turned to look over his shoulder.

Dave sat on the steps of the desert planet, playing absently with a strand of hair, as Terezi hovered over his shoulder, laughing. Karkat felt his face settle into a deep scowl. Of course they were back. It wasn't like they were going to catch a break because they were done or anything.

"Ignore them," Karkat spat. "Do your best. They're just gonna be bigger problems and it's not worth our time."

"Kay."

Neither John or Karkat moved to look away. Fuck, at least the two fake specter being were something other than waiting around, right? And it wasn't as if they really thought anything of them. Just a distraction.

The grin that spread over Terezi's face made Karkat feel sick in the pit of his stomach. It wasn't right. None of this was anymore. The clock kept going silently overhead, as John and Karkat kept their eyes trained on the only small break they had from waiting for nothing to happen.


	32. Red Like a Warning

1000 Days, 00:00 Hours

A grumble filled the air. It started as a low hum, causing John to rub his ears. It felt like a ringing there, like something was being played too high pitched. He glanced to Karkat. The troll scowled, rubbing his temples. The noise increased in volume, gradually getting louder and lower, producing a dull thudding that rang across the expanse of the endless room.

John kept his eyes fixed on the Earth. Although the noise was loud, it did not seem like anything was actually shaking. That meant, at the very least, there was nothing to worry about on that account. Though if the lack of _anything_ kept up, maybe some shaking would be good. Something to do. Pieces to place.

The noise persisted and John gave a sigh. Five minutes had passed and nothing. No change. He picked at a nail, smoothed down his shirt. Shifted. Stared at the Earth. Glanced at the clock. Glanced to Karkat, who seemed intent on watching Alternia from their spot. Back to Earth.

Almost as immediately as it began, the sound cut off. Giving his now aching ears another slight rub, John rose to his feet, surveying the damage. Nothing to his right. He turned again, almost stumbling when something black caught his eye.

A faint outline was perched across the far wall, and without looking back, John launched for it at a run. It was different. It was something new and he hadn't seen something different against these walls in so long it actually hurt. The scramble of limbs and feet behind him let him know the troll had realized it as well.

It might be their exit.

Above the door sat the blue and red circles, though John only glanced at them for a moment before scanning for a door handle. A small sliver of off white sat in a circle by the one side, and he grinned. It had been so long. His feet slammed down hard on the white floor, pain shooting up his legs from the force. But he didn't care. Couldn't care. Freedom was _so close_.

Stopping hadn't crossed his mind really, and he slammed full force into the white door when he finally got there. He gave a pant, lungs screaming for air, as he heard the footsteps behind him slow. John glanced back. Karkat stood, breathing deeply as well, but not as out of breath as John seemed to be. Off in the distance, the planets sat still. The clock ticked.

"You ready to get out of here?" John asked, straightening and grabbing the handle.

"So fucking ready," Karkat replied. He might have even cracked a smile. John twisted the handle, shoving inwards. A faint crack of blue light shone through.

Karkat screamed behind him.

John whirled. Terezi had grabbed Karkat around the neck, and he bled from his side. He was struggling against her grip as her cackles filled the air. John didn't hesitate to launch forward.

A hand grabbed the back of his shirt, snapping him to a stop. He spun, fist clenched, and decked his captor. Feferi went flying back against the wall, as purple blood stained his knuckles.

Again he turned. Karkat had freed himself, digging his scythe across the fake troll's throat. Teal splattered down across him, and he turned.

"Let's move!" the troll shouted. John nodded. Another hand dug into his arm, deep. He let out a grunt, wrenching it away. Dave stumbled backwards, pulling out his sword and launching forward.

Karkat was quick to block the blow, kicking Dave backwards, as John drew his hammer and slammed it into Nepeta, who had appeared just behind the two of them. A hand around his wrist. Karkat's. The troll tugged him forward, launching them both through the door. John glanced back at the figures forming. Numerous copies of their friends blocked the entrance way.

John shifted, slamming the door behind them. He squeezed his eyes shut, taking two deep breaths, before opening them. The floor was a grey brown, and everything took on a bit of a blue tint from the overhead lights. The walls were blank, and the room itself was rather small.

Karkat coughed beside him, and John turned his attention there. The troll had a hand on his side, the black shirt quickly getting darker and damp.

"Shit," John swore, sliding beside him. "What are we gonna do?"

"Dunno," Karkat muttered, closing his eyes. "I'll live. Just gotta be careful. I've had worse from the game before. Fucking hell, what was that?"

"No clue," John replied. He wiped a bit of teal off Karkat's face. The troll didn't bother to protest, instead opting for cold silence. John worked for a few minutes, before sitting back a bit.

"Can I see it?"

"No."

"We're gonna have to look at it to see what we can do, Karkat."

The troll shook his head. "I'm not a soft skinned baby ass human, John. It's not that deep. It'll close in an hour."

John gave a nod, but didn't really know what to think. The two sat, still breathing heavily. He glanced around the room again, taking in the empty walls. There was another door behind them that they should probably get through. It was a lot more simple than the others. Made of wood, it looked like.

John drummed his fingers against his knee, glancing over at the troll. Karkat seemed deep in thought, and John wasn't sure disturbing them was really a good idea right then. His eyes drifted to the dark spot on the black shirt. Shit. Karkat better be alright. But he wasn't allowed to do anything about it. Instead of moving, protesting, or anything, he began to fidget. Karkat could give the go ahead for them to leave whenever he was suitably prepared.

All the same, though, John felt his thoughts drift. What had happened with the ghosts? They had never been able to attack before. And what was going to happen after they went through the next door? He pulled his knees against his chest, hoping that they wouldn't be followed by the not so ghost like friends of theirs whenever they moved out.


	33. War Wound

Time Unknown

Every small breath brought another pang of pain. Karkat tried to keep it shallow, but the effort didn't seem to help much. His feet were sore, his arm ached from blocking that attack of Dave's, and he wasn't so sure the cut to his side wasn't a big deal. 'Cut' was the wrong word. 'Gouge' or 'wound' or 'holy fucking hell Terezi stabbed me' seemed more appropriate in his mind. But the troll knew the moment he said something, the moment John started panicking. And that was around the last thing they needed.

The windy idiot, for the most part, was fidgeting still, poking around the room and pacing from time to time, glancing towards Karkat every so often. Despite flipping him the bird, John continued to stare. Karkat knew why. He was taking too much time to recover. It was just really fucking painful and he couldn't catch his breath. All his energy was going into not freaking this guy out and it didn't seem to be working.

"We need to get going," John said, crouching down before Karkat. The troll scowled as John turned his back. "Climb up. I'll carry you."

"I'm not that inept," Karkat growled. He shifted. Pain rushed through his side, sitting as an ache at the base of his neck. He grit his teeth down, scowling. John stared at him from over his shoulder. He knew. He knew Karkat was just bluffing.

What boneshitting horrid luck.

With a grunt, Karkat shifted forward. sliding his arms around John's neck. John lifted up, picking up the troll under his knees. Karkat winced at the movement, seeing a bit of the damp blood wipe from his shirt to John's own. He dug his nails into his other arm, teeth grinding. The pain felt like a dull ache, with wires of pain that would spring up if John took an already awkward step the wrong way.

"You're awful at this," Karkat muttered. He squeezed his eyes closed. "This is still painful."

John gave a small shrug in reply, but didn't respond otherwise. Instead, he made his way to the second door, shifting Karkat's leg a little as he grabbed the doorknob with his trapped arm. Karkat tried to focus on breathing and not freaking the other guy out any. A creak let him know the door was open, but a white light pressed against his eyelids and he didn't dare look.

A few more awkward, shuffling steps, the slam of a door as John probably kicked it closed. Wherever they arrived was eerily silent, with Karkat's shallow breathing filling his own ears. The light on his eyelids dimmed, and he shuffled his head above John's shoulder and carefully peeled his eyes open.

The room was well lit, white, and full of shelves. Karkat straightened, uncertain as to what he was really seeing. Lines and rows of shelves sat before them, glowing white, probably seven feet high in perfect rows. Tiny dots of something covered them, and it was impossible for Karkat to tell what they were. It seemed John was stunned too, and Karkat grabbed a fistful of hair and tugged.

John yelped. "What?"

"Move closer dipshit."

The boy walked, and as he did, Karkat glanced up. The clock sat floating there, ticking down the time they either had left or were using up White shelves filled the corners of his eyes. John had stopped in the middle of two rows. Karkat peered down. He squinted. John gasped beside his ear, and Karkat felt his own eyes widen.

They were trolls. There were probably millions of them in total, at least a thousand sitting tiny and spaced out on the shelf. Each had its own set of horns, its own symbol, everything. The more Karkat glanced around, the more he felt his mouth being to hang open. His mind raced. Did they have to put them on the planets? They'd never all fit. They were too big. Same size of the pieces probably.

He wanted to get down, but the moment he shifted backwards, he felt it again. Karkat bit his lip hard.

"You okay back there?" John asked. Karkat wanted to give a snarky remark, spew some venom out at the kid, but nothing came to mind. Holy hell, he had nothing to say.

John took the hint, stepping to the side and kneeling. The troll slid down, hitting the floor. He winced, gripping his side through his sweater, as John turned to face him.

"How bad is it?"

Instead of replying, Karkat glared down the clock. Hating it for a second took his mind off his injury.

"Karkat!"

The troll growled.

"Just tell me how bad it is."

But instead of waiting on a reply, John grabbed his sweater. Karkat hissed as the fabric peeled away from his injury, the pain shooting through him again. He looked over the hem, watching John examine the gouge closely for a few seconds before meeting Karkat's gaze. He looked worried. Great.

"I know, it's deep," Karkat grumbled. He looked back at the clock, watching the numbers change. "We just gotta work fast."

"Karkat-"

"Don't make a huge deal out of it."

"We need to clean and bandage it."

Karkat sighed. "We don't have supplies. And our dirty ass bloody clothes aren't gonna be so great either. Whatever we need to do here, let's just get it done and hope I get healed before we go back."

John's brow furrowed as Karkat watched his face. They didn't have a shit ton of choice in the matter, though. After a few moments, John gave his shoulder a pat, gently tugging down the shirt again.

"I dunno what to do about it," he said.

"I don't either, Egbert. Just go grab a handful of those trolls and see what happens."

With a nod, John stood and turned. Karkat took a moment to nurse the wound, cradling his side lightly for a moment, before following John with his eyes. The boy reached out and grabbed a fistful of trolls without hesitation.

Coloured light streaked out from between John's fingers, and Karkat had to shield his eyes to avoid how bright the room had suddenly become.


	34. Topple

1002 Days, 00:58 Hours

His fingers flew open, burning. He pulled his hand against his chest. Wary, he John glanced down, his skin pink and slightly tingling. The skin was smooth and glossy on his fingertips. Those damn trolls he had tried to take had burned him a bit when they turned to those weird lights. There was no way he was getting another handful.

It didn't take long for him to remember that not only did he have company, but said company was potentially dying and presently shouting at him.

"What the hell did you just do? Did you burn your hand on that? God damn, Egbert, you-"

"Shut it!" John snapped, turning to stare down the sitting troll. "You told me to grab some and I did!"

"You should've figured it out!"

"Holy fuck are you seriously blaming me?" John gave a somewhat bitter laugh, running his good hand through his bangs. He took a deep breath. His hand ached but he put it out of his mind, looking again down at the troll. He was met with a glare.

Alright, so Karkat was pissed. That meant it was John's turn to try and keep a level head. Even if he just wanted to deck the other guy.

"Look, Karkat. Just shut up and calm down. Neither of us could have known, so let's just move forward and not make a stupid deal out of it. Okay? We need to get home."

A grunt. Good enough as a reply.

John turned his attention back to the shelf. So, there wasn't going to be any more contact made with these. If they burned his skin he didn't want to risk it burning his clothes. That hopefully meant they weren't meant to be part with the planets in through the other rooms. Good. The last place in the entire game he wanted to be was probably that room. Who knew what their 'friends' were doing.

He shook the thought from his head. That wasn't focusing. Blue eyes skimmed the shelves, taking in thousands of tiny faces he would probably never see again. It was a bit disturbing to see just how large a race the trolls really were. John took a moment to dart between the rows of shelves, scanning over what there was. Trolls for the most part, it seemed, but once he got to the third row of shelves there were humans just like him. All the shapes and sizes he recognised.

Hesitantly, John grabbed a human figurine. Again it burned slightly before turning into a ball of light and disappearing. John hissed, but this time it hadn't burned as badly as the last. Touching was out across the board. That was alright. It just made a bit of a challenge.

With a final glance around the shelves, John darted his way back to the troll. Karkat looked bad. His face was whiter than before, as if whatever colour he did have was draining. His brows were furrowed, but he looked more strained and unimpressed than as if he was dying. Hopefully it meant it just hurt. John was counting on it.

"What'd you find?" Karkat grumbled, raising his eyes upwards. His one hand curled against his side.

"Humans are a bit further back. Same thing happens to them as trolls." John sat himself beside Karkat, picking at a thread on his pant leg. "I dunno what we're gonna do. I think we're supposed to make them do that light thing, but I can't touch them. Even just that handful hurt."

Karkat didn't reply. John narrowed his own eyes, thinking. Was it when they hit only flesh that they turned to light, or could it be anything? And how secure were the shelves? As he skimmed the shelves, he noticed the troll beside him doing the same thing.

"Make the shelves fall on each other," Karkat said gruffly, cracking the tiniest of upwards lip movements.

John just grinned. "Then we don't have to touch anything, but we make them all hit something, right?"

"They'd hit each other or the floor or the shelves on the way down. It's not a bad plan. Worth a shot, and better than burns."

John nodded, and rose to his feet. He offered a hand down to the troll. Karkat's face immediately dropped from the half smile to a frown.

"I can't help you topple them right now," he sighed. "I'll watch."

Well, damn, that was pretty final. But it made sense. If Karkat healed, then maybe they could get the straggler pieces together sooner, and then they'd be home free. Unless there was another room with something else impossible to do in it that'd keep them trapped again. John hated that line of thought, but really, it wasn't his fault it kept coming back up.

John almost ran to the far end of the shelves, skidding as he hit the end. The shelf loomed over his head, but not so far to be intimidating. It was just taller. He centred himself, stretching a bit before rooting his legs down. He launched forwards, hitting the shelves with his torso. The frame shook. A few bits of lights shone out as figures fell.

"Close your eyes!" he shouted. He launched forward, once, twice, and on the next blow he closed his eyes.

The sound was deafening. The cascade of pieces downwards sounded like rain, and the heat rose up from the shelves. John stumbled back to the wall, hiding his face in his arm. Each shelf creaked and clattered as it fell, the sounds and vibrations practically shaking the room. The light and noise and sound lasted for a solid minute before slowing down.

When John opened his eyes, he almost grinned at the wreckage. The floor was black and the air was thick. The row of shelves was splintered and stuck out at varying angles. Karkat, a black blob against the white wall, was still curled up and hiding his face. A few lights shot off, and only two shelves at the end hadn't fallen.

"Did it work?" Karkat shouted. "Can I look?"

"Hell yeah," John replied. "I think we're gonna be done this soon."

He broke out into a run again, dodging stray pieces of shelf, in order to get to the last remaining ones in the row. Then he'd start on the next one. It was going to take barely any time at all.


	35. Perseverance

1006 Days, 5:43 Hours

So, maybe blindly toppling mass amounts of shelves was a bad idea after all. Karkat had moved his spot a bit, but for the most part still spent his time sitting down. John did the legwork. Even though they had the same stupid idea, Karkat was pleased this time he didn't have to clean up the giant mess immediately.

Once John had toppled all the shelves, effectively blackening the floor and caking his own shoes in debris, nothing had happened. Which hadn't particularly surprised either of them. Despite the headache from all that damn light, Karkat had helped the idiot come up with the idea that maybe randomly toppling shelves didn't knock over all the pieces.

Thankfully, he had been right. Over the past few days, John had walked around and through the mess of shelves, finding quite the number of figures who had not been disturbed enough to disappear. While this didn't really make sense to either of them, it at least helped to explain why nothing happened.

So John puttered around, finding people, and Karkat focused on trying to walk sometimes and trying not to aggravate the injury. It seemed like it had started to heal, at the very least. Damn, he had been an idiot to let it happen in the first place, not that he had much of a choice.

Still, Karkat was a bit on edge. Last time they had finished something, those ghosts had come outta nowhere and actually attacked them. If that kept up, they were in a deep pile of musclebeast shit. Karkat could barely fight, though he could step up if he had to. John would be their best bet. Besides an exit. But knowing the game, it would keep that hidden for a while.

He glanced at the clock and scowled. He had taken to wondering why exactly they had been given one in the first place. Probably for torture. It hardly mattered.

A flash of light and a sigh. Seemed like John had found another figure.

"It going okay?" Karkat shouted.

"Yeah, I see two more, but I'll have to take a break after getting them."

Karkat gave a nod, stretching out his legs slightly in his sitting position. A few flashes of light later, and John was seated beside him.

The boy lifted the corner of Karkat's shirt, and with a scowl, the troll let him look. It was a gross bubble of red against his grey skin, and from John's face it was obvious the kid didn't really like looking at it.

"Can trolls get infections?" he asked, pulling the shirt down lightly. Karkat made sure it wasn't resting too hard on the cut.

"I guess so. Lowbloods more I think. I've heard stories."

A small silence enveloped the two. John silently played with the black crust on his faded shoes. Karkat squinted his eyes, scanning for anything John may have missed that he could see from his spot.

"Do you want me to look with you? I can probably manage to walk around," Karkat asked. "Can't baby myself or I won't make it back home."

John eyed him up and down before giving a slight nod. "Just remember not to touch them. Shake the shelf or hit them."

"I'm not stupid."

John muttered something under his breath. Karkat shrugged it off. It was probably some slur against him, but fuck, he was doing the guy's job for him. He deserved some respect. Slowly, Karkat rose to his feet, standing shaking for a few moments before he set off. John jumped to his feet, following the troll to the rows.

Karkat found it difficult to walk. The shelves lay haphazardly, sporadically spaced along the ashen floor. He spent most of the time with his eyes down, looking where his feet were going as well as keeping his eyes out for pieces leftover. The more he scanned, the more it seemed John had done a damn good job in this section, at least. The pace was painfully slow. He shifted shelves with his feet and one arm, clutching his side with the other. The movement wasn't really helping, but he liked doing something. Even something he didn't want to have to do.

Time dragged on as they both looked. John found another piece, and even Karkat found a missed human in the third row of shelves. But still, they kept looking. They couldn't be sure there weren't any more weird, glowing, burning things to set free or kill off or something. Everything about the situation was a bit off, but they didn't have much of a choice. John found another one, and a streak of light shot off.

The shaking began again. Karkat wasn't sure whether to scowl or smile at that. It at least meant something was happening in the room. He glanced to John, who was a row away. His expression was a mix of serious with a slight smile underneath.

At least this time it had gone pretty fast. Again, the door appeared on the far wall, the same stupid red and blue marker above it. Shaking off some ash from his foot, Karkat staggered his way over, John close behind. The boy stepped forward, nodded, and opened the door wide. Karkat closed his eyes. It was a bit weird, doing all this moving. He could still see the planets in his mind's eye. John grabbed his wrist and dragged forward, and together they entered the next room.

"Holy shit," John shouted. Karkat opened his eyes, but couldn't see anything besides white. John threw him to the side and he hit the ground with a skid, hissing at the pain in his side. Through half closed eyes, he watched a blurry figure come after John.

Thoughts clicked into place. Karkat drew his sickle, standing slowly, trying to will his vision to clear. Who the fuck was there? Was it the ghosts again?

A sharp blow to the back of his head. He was fast enough to stash the sickle before he slammed back to the ground, eyes fading to black.


	36. Rainbow

1006 Days, 22:34 Hours

Karkat crumpled to the ground as a blow from one of Gamzee's clubs sent him down. John couldn't spare a long look, instead having to leap back away from the sharp claws of Nepeta, who he was still dealing with. He was out of practice really fighting, besides that stint as they were escaping earlier. He did his best to dodge and try and strike back, a lucky blow cutting through her defences and sending her flying.

A laugh behind him. He spun fast enough to catch the blow of a Zillyhoo with his own, Gamzee's smudged makeup close to his face. This close, John couldn't help but make eye contact, and he flinched at what he saw. Red and blue orbs set against the yellow sclera of the troll's eye greeted him. John jumped back, both from shock and to free himself up for a proper fight. The game was in control here. Complete control.

John had no idea what he was doing. Something might have stayed over but it had been far too long. He blocked blows, but many landed, and his arms and legs ached. He blocked a blow from the hammer, only to be struck from the side by something sharp. He stumbled. He glanced to his right where Rose stood, drawing back blood stained needles. The same red and blue eyes stared down at him, a smirk splayed across her black lips.

She lunged forward, and John smashed down, throwing the needles out of her hand and giving a solid kick to her chest. Rose hit the ground, and John spun. A multicoloured blur raced towards his face.

It never made contact. John watched as purple blood poured from Gamzee's chest. The troll dropped. Karkat stood behind, panting and bleeding down the back of his head.

"I'm not dead yet," he exhaled. John nodded, tightening his grip. He breathed in, watching Rose clench her fists and stand, as she launched forward again. John smashed the hammer clean against her head, resounding in a sickening snap. He cringed.

Fighting was exhausting. Between blows his limbs screamed and his chest ached, but John couldn't stop. Whenever he or Karkat knocked someone down, another replaced them. John stopped keeping track of faces. If it wasn't Karkat, it was the game. The binary made things easier, simpler. Something to give his mind a small break between the blur of blood colours and injuries.

It didn't help that the ghosts laughed. And taunted. Their voices were wrong in some way, mechanical, but still carrying something familiar to them. John disliked listening. It sent him on edge. Which was probably the point, but damn, it worked well.

Karkat hit the ground again. He didn't get up. John surveyed around them, backing up closer to the troll. Only two left. Hopefully. So he smashed and attacked and gasped for air. It took far too long to ensure neither figure was going to get up again, and John had to wipe far too much blood off his face.

He had to shove a Sollux corpse off of Karkat to get at him. The troll seemed to have opened his eyes. His breaths were short. John slid an arm around him and lifted, standing them both on shaking feet.

"We win?" Karkat gasped. He looked to the side and spat. John looked away for a moment.

"I think so. No one else here that's alive."

Karkat leaned in heavily and John winced, feeling a bruise form on his side. It didn't look good for either of them. John was bruised and cut, and Karkat was most likely stunned from the two blows to his head. His side seemed to have started bleeding again as well. John knew he didn't fare much better. At least his wounds were just multiple in number instead of horrific.

John took a step, and Karkat stumbled, muttering curses.

"There isn't a door anywhere," John whispered. "But there are walls. We can make it there, okay? Just hold on."

Karkat didn't actually hold onto anything. John mostly dragged him the remainder of the distance, letting him drop in a heap when they reached the wall. They were both coated in bloods of different hues. A small clock counted the time on the ceiling, and John watched it through half closed eyes. A nap couldn't hurt. It wasn't as if he was going to die. Even if he did.

The familiar rumble jolted him. John hadn't remembered falling asleep, exactly, but it seemed he had. He rubbed his eyes, and checked the clock. He had been out for a long time. Shit. Well, at least he wasn't dead - not that he felt much better.

Karkat was leaning on the wall, eyes open and watching to the right. John followed his gaze, expecting another outline. Instead, a black hole was placed on the wall. A faint blue glow emanated from it. He looked back at the troll.

"What do you think it means?"

"I dunno. Only chance we got," Karkat mumbled. He rubbed under his eyes.

"I'm tired, Karkat."

"I am too."

He had never seen quite such a pathetic expression on the trolls' face. Even worse, he was pretty sure it was the same face he was wearing now. As he stood, drawing Karkat up with him, he felt some kind of eyes watching the back of his head. He didn't turn. John was getting so tired of the tricks of this place. Together, they took stumbling steps towards the next exit.


	37. Haunting

1010 Days, 00:07 Hours

Karkat felt like shit.

He had felt like shit before. Working for nothing. When John had died. Seeing his dead friends. Having to kill his dead friends. But this was different. He felt exhausted and tired, like someone was shutting down his mind. Probably because he had a giant gash on the back of his head by now. Maybe he was dying.

He hadn't been tired in a long, long time. It was a familiar ache in his chest. He wanted to sleep. Pass out. Let his mind shut down.

John stumbled, and the troll grabbed on tightly. The kid wasn't doing too hot either. He had passed out earlier, and Karkat had been on alert the whole time, convinced he was dead. He had kept breathing at least. Close enough to life for Karkat.

The journey to the black and glowing gap was slow. Karkat couldn't walk without support, and John could barely support himself. Karkat grinded his teeth, fresh pain travelling from his jaw to the back of his head. It hurt and made him want to upchuck, but at least for a few moments it kept him alert.

John dragged his feet, and Karkat dug his hand into a stained piece of blue fabric.

"Cmon. We're almost there," he hissed. John gave a faint nod.

"What do you think... is wrong with us?" he muttered, shifting Karkat's arm a bit before beginning to walk again.

Karkat felt his mind spin. It meant something. But it was hard to get past the pain and weariness to figure it out. "I don't know. I'm just so tired."

"Maybe it's catching up with us."

"Maybe we aren't immune to being beaten," Karkat spat, but it took effort. John could be right. Maybe whatever protection they had was ebbing off. Maybe that's why it hurt.

But then again, they had just fought a giant team of deadly game soldiers. Karkat had been knocked out twice. His vision blurred. At least the next room was almost there. For the final steps, he kept his eyes closed, trying to be sure neither of them fell.

His foot clanged down, the floor echoing up an unfamiliar noise. He cracked his eyes open, taking in the dark, shiny floor, and his own reflection. Matted, bloodstained hair and skin. Bright red eyes against yellow. His lip was swollen. A bright red stain ran down his neck, and his shirt... well, it had seen better days. He gave himself a scowl, forcing his head up to observe the rest of the room.

It wasn't enormous. It had a simple door at the end, which was the first thing Karkat checked for. The second was the source of the glowing, but that too now felt obvious.

Monitors lined the back wall, each giving a faint glow of light from them. John slid the troll's arm off him, taking a few steps towards them as Karkat squinted at the screens. Under each was the familiar circles. Embedded in them, however, was the small house shape he knew so well. It wasn't divided into twelve, like in his, or four, like John's. It was just two, a top and bottom piece. One for each of them.

The images on the screens seem to captivate John into a stony silence. Karkat stumbled his way forward, his knee giving, his chest aching, but he managed to stand beside John, leaning heavily on the thin counter. The scenes startled him. Spalshes of colour - Karkat had barely been aware how much he missed colour on such a big scale - and depth and fields spread before him. Fighting figures of black and white, clad in colours. Another screen showed a troll - Terezi - fighting a hoard of enemies. Yet another showed John's death on his quest bed.

The monitors flickered, displaying new scenes, all familiar. But it wasn't their sessions this time. It was a white, bleached scene of them fighting in the previous room, of drawing on the walls in chalk, of setting pieces and arguing and cursing. Karkat felt ill. He shivered.

"So we were being watched," John breathed. "The whole time."

"No shit," Karkat murmured, but he was just as fascinated. The monitors flickered again, and he watched familiar and unfamiliar scenes play out, from his session and John's. The images made his eyes sore.

John was making his way towards the next door, and Karkat glanced at him with the corner of his eye. He couldn't follow. The throbbing in the back of his head still threatened him. The boy turned the knob on the door, opening it. It swung inwards, away from him, revealing to Karkat's eyes an empty closet - not that he could see around John.

But something in there had started John. There was something else to him as he moved back, dragging Karkat without a word towards the door. The troll didn't protest. He didn't have the words.

When he was finally spun around, John pointing and shouting, he realised why there was cause for excitement. On the floor were two familiar, grey circles. Transportalizers. John looked practically giddy, and Karkat managed a small grin.

"We're gonna get out of here," he said, taking a step into the room. "We're-"

The room behind them went dark. The monitors all flashed the same clock, slowly counting up. A rumble. The opening on the wall disappeared before Karkat's weary eyes. With what was probably the last of his strength, John hauled them both in the room, slamming the door behind them.

It was small, and dusty, of all things. A digital clock sat in the wall, small and pale. John dragged Karkat forward, setting him before a transportalizer. He made his way to the other one.

"Ready?" he asked.

It wasn't going to be that easy. "Guess so."

John stepped on the circle. Nothing happened. He jumped once, before sliding off, shuffling to the troll. He looked defeated. Karkat barely had any hopes to get dashed. His eyes lingered on the small clock.

The next rumble sounded less like something shifting, and more like a faint, echoing laugh.


	38. My Kingdom Awaits

1023 Days, 23:21 Hours

The room was small, grim, and dirty. Blood stained the walls in smears and patches, chipping pools on the floor. John and Karkat sat in opposite corners. John kept his eyes darting between the troll, the transportalizer circles, and the clock. Sometimes he glanced at the door, but they hadn't gone outside it since they arrived. The rumbles hadn't stopped, and John knew more than ever they were being watched in the small room. He shifted his legs out, wincing.

They spoke little. Being tired was an almost new sensation, and with every shift the first few days John had been in pain. Karkat didn't have snappy remarks. He spent hours at a time with his eyes closed, though John didn't think he was really sleeping. He wasn't sure they really could - passing out was one thing, but sleep was another. It wasn't as if they were hungry yet.

Another rumble shook the room, the noise getting high and crackled, like laughing through an old speaker. John grit his teeth, watching the door shake in its hinges. It didn't open, and the shaking slowed to a stop. Only after a few minutes passed did John relax.

There was still no change in the transportalizers. Despite them testing the devices occasionally, it didn't seem like they had any intent to wake up soon. They were both agitated and tense. John's whole body still ached. He hadn't felt so physically inept his whole time here, and mentally the strain was breaking him. His eyes twitched. His hands, palms sweaty, were clenched into fists. All their work, a step away from potential freedom, and they were caged in a room the size of a closet.

Karkat shuffled, drawing his knees up closer to his chest. He cast a weary eye towards John. John looked back. For a moment, neither spoke.

"Time?" Karkat muttered. His voice carried well in the small room.

John flicked his eyes up. "Ten twenty four, half hour in."

The time itself startled John somewhat. It passed at a strange pace when he didn't watch the clock - an odd mix of fast and slow. His thoughts kept him occupied and distracted, but he had lost the ability to sense how time went. Maybe he never had it, and just pretended.

Maybe the game had taken it.

A shudder ran down his back and he stared at the floor. There was a lot to worry him now. His clothes. Karkat's health. Whatever was sitting on the other side of that door. The laugh.

Maybe the laugh was the worst part after all - it might not even have been real. John didn't know if he was imagining it, if Karkat was too, or if the game somehow really was laughing. And if it was, did that mean they had lost?

He rubbed his temples. They had to have won. They had done everything the game had presented them with, and more. They had fought their friends over and over and most likely lost their minds. John felt a weight press down on his shoulders, and his head sank. There was nothing to distract him from his own mind anymore, and that too was something he worried about. Even if they had remade the worlds, had they actually won anything?

Across the room, Karkat shifted again. John looked up, watching the troll cross the room slowly, using the wall as support. He made his way beside John, sliding down to sit.

"You look pale," John whispered. There was a slight pinkish hue to the trolls' cheeks. The back of his hair was still matted with stray dried blood.

"You just look bad overall." The reply was forced. Karkat glanced his eyes over the clock, before curling up into a ball again.

"Karkat, I don't-"

"We'll get out."

"How do you know?"

The troll shrugged. "I don't. But I don't know if we've done anything and I don't know if you're real. I just really want to go home and have everything work out. Besides, if we're going to die here, might as well try and have a happy thought for once in my life, right?"

John gave a small nod. It didn't ease any of his thoughts, but at least it meant Karkat was still there, somewhere, wits about him. John wasn't sure he was in the same position. There was an odd ache forming in his gut, one he didn't recognise, and his eyes felt heavy. Whatever was happening, it was hellish.

He closed his eyes. A weight on his side let him know Karkat was leaning on him. Maybe this is what it was like to be tired again. Maybe the game was backing off. Maybe it meant they were going to get released soon.

"When we get out, do you think anyone's gonna recognise us?" John whispered.

"Maybe. I hope so."

"Are you gonna go see Terezi still?"

Another pause. Karkat remained silent, though, and John didn't press for more. Who knew if Terezi would want to see him. Who knew what they were going back to?

The game did. But it didn't like talking.

The next thing he knew Karkat was shaking him. His eyes fluttered open after a moment, and he quickly realised what was happening.

"Did I just sleep?" he gasped. Karkat nodded, looking grim. "Holy. When was the last time that happened? How long was I out?"

"About as long as I was, which is a lot longer than I've ever slept," the troll muttered. "It's almost-"

Karkat didn't get to finish. The clock fell to the floor, shattering. Large, black numbers cracked the walls, making chips of what looked like cement crumble to the ground.

1025. And it didn't seem like the game was pleased one bit about it.

With each crack and black spot that formed, a gush of fast, hot air blew in. John watched, horrified to see that the more chips formed, the more small holes appeared in the walls. The wind was loud and swirled around them, gusts blowing right in his ears.

He hauled Karkat to his feet, looking down desperately at the transportalizers. Karkat said something, but his words were lost in the gushing of air and cracking of walls. A large chunk fell from where John had been leaning. He set his jaw and hauled the troll forwards.

When they approached, nothing seemed to have changed. The grey circles sat motionless, without any indication that they were on. He dropped to his knees, smoothing his hands over the surface once. Nothing. Nothing at all.

His hands balled into fists, and he smashed them into the grey. "You owe us," he muttered. "We won and you have to let us out."

The room shook. John shivered, feeling something hiss in his ear. Scraps of noises and sounds that didn't form anything. The sound of it made him freeze. Was it trying to talk to him?

A flicker. Lights shot up, hovering from the two grey circles. One was of Earth, outlined in red, and the other was Alternia, with the same outline in blue.

John felt lightheaded. A ball of suspicion and hope mixed in his still aching gut, and he glanced down. Karkat gave a nod, staggering to his feet as John followed suit. The wind whipped around them, but John knew it couldn't end without a goodbye.

He quickly pulled the troll into a tight hug, feeling the bruises on his body screech in protest. For once, Karkat returned the gesture. John brought his mouth close to the troll's ear and shouted over the wind.

"I'll talk to you soon, right?"

"You better, you ass."

John pulled back. There was a fierce grin spread across Karkat's face - with his sharp teeth, it looked intimidating rather than reassuring. Or maybe it was meant to be threatening. The troll gave him one last, long look.

Another crack and a gust of wind. There was only one wall left standing properly, and the blackness that greeted them was worse than any threat. It was time to move out.

Karkat reacted first, stepping onto the one circle that led to his planet, have stumbling as it zapped him. For one dreadful moment, John was alone.

His foot was hovered inches above the grey circle that lead him home when he heard it. A voice he didn't recognise. Loud. Rumbling.

"You didn't win," it hissed.

John slammed his foot down.

He was falling. Though a sea of nothing and nowhere. He wondered, slowly, if this was just another trick. If he was just going to fall forever. The voiced echoed around him, the three simple words repeating over and over in his mind. The thought was filling, and it distracted him so much he almost didn't notice when he was sitting.

The room was familiar. The posters had been taken down, and much of the furniture moved. But he knew it. The layout was the same. The smell was the same, of cake and pastry and heat.

He took off at a run. He kicked off the shoes he still wore, dirty and haggered and no longer yellow. He looked like a mess, but his limbs didn't ache and his shoulders felt light. Feet slammed against stairs, and he rounded into the kitchen.

His Dad turned, and with one shocked look, dropped the cake he was holding onto the floor. John launched forward, threw his arms around his father, and let out a single, chocked sob.


	39. Lag Time

The first thing Karkat noticed upon arriving back to his hive was that no one lived there.

It was in shambles. Walls missing, smashed windows, and looted. Rags and papers scattered the floor of his respiteblock. He had hoped for something better - Crabdad's screeching, another trolls, anything but this.

He had no extra clothing, and with no husktop, there was no way of contacting his friends. Karkat wasn't even certain there was an electrical device left in the hive. For all his poking and prodding, the best he came up with was one of his old DVDs. He shivered. The open walls allowed the wind inside far too much.

This was the last thing he fucking needed. No home. No way to contact his friends. No idea what was going on. He was tired and hungry and pissed off. He clenched his fists. He needed a plan.

If he couldn't stay here, he had to go elsewhere. Trolls without their lusus were likely to be culled. Especially if they were mutants like him. So, he'd have to go to someone else's hive for a while to hide out.

Terezi.

It was his only real option. She lived a bit far, sure, but at least he knew where she lived and that he probably had a chance of hiding out there. That made things a bit easier. Karkat glanced at the sky. He still had a few hours to travel before dawn. He'd have to sleep on the road, hidden, without sopor.

What a god awful way to come home.

Nights passed slowly as he travelled. He kept off the roads, taking shortcuts around villages and homes. He had been healed, but he was still all kinds of sore. And tired. And hungry. His clothes were still bloody and torn, and if Karkat caught someone's eye he'd probably be dead. He learned very little about what was going on around him - nothing major seemed to have changed or happened. Maybe he had just been thrown back without a house. Which would, by all accounts, suck. He'd be two years older than his friends and-

"Sweeps," he muttered. "You have to think in sweeps now."

At dawn, Karkat would huddle into a ball, tucking his knees close to his chest. His dreams were vivid and horrifying, full of timers and laughter. Karkat didn't know if it was just exposure to the outdoors or actual fear on his own. Sometimes he would sit, eyes closed, muttering to himself. It was a horrible habit and he knew John should be there to tease him about it. But there was no John.

"At least the world is back. Your life sucks but you're alive. Don't be such a wiggler."

It was a mantra he adopted as he darted from place to place, getting ever closer to the colourful forest where Terezi made her living. If she was still there. Karkat shook his head. The nagging doubts haunted him often as he travelled.

By the time he made it back to Terezi's forest, he felt exhausted. He muttered curse words under his breath every step, constantly glancing around for fear of someone to attack him. Karkat tried to distract himself. He focused on how glad his friends would be, how he could probably at least have a proper meal soon. He might even have some people to take care of him. He missed Sollux's dumb humor and Gamzee's idiocy.

Her hive seemed a bit more impressive than he remembered. Larger. There were certainly more scalemates hanging down from the branches. Memories of placing the pieces down flooded his mind. He rubbed his hands together. He had brought this place back.

It was a slow climb up the rope ladder at the side of her house, but he managed well enough. It was nearing the end of the night by the time he got up there, but Karkat figured that he had enough time to explain himself before the sun came back.

Karkat climbed through the whole at the top, barely half out, when a hand grabbed his hair. He gave a yelp, trying to call her name, but Terezi had already thrown him across the room. He slammed into a pile of books, feeling a bruise form on his back already. He blinked, hearing the clack of feet approaching, and tried to dislodge himself.

"You are very poor at sneaking in! I heard you coming miles away. Unfortunately for you, there is one way out of my hive now, and I assure you it is with a rope!"

"Te-"

"Don't talk back!" A book fell on Karkat's head and he shoved it aside, finally getting a good look at her. She was thin, a bit taller and more angular, her chin set forward, red glasses perched low on her nose. Her smile was wide, showing off vaguely familiar sharp white teeth. A cane blade was in her hand, inches from his face.

She sniffed. And sniffed again. The blade began to lower as her features shifted, and Karkat cleared his throat.

"Terezi, it's-"

"Karkat?"

"Yes, it's me. Who the hell else could it be?" He sat up, slowly, watching her face. She seemed to be confused. Well, from what Karkat figured something was different, so he couldn't blame her. He was older. But so was she. Had time passed here as well?

As he tried to stand, the blade appeared before his face again. Terezi had set her mouth in a hard line, and Karkat felt his stomach sink.

"I have a hard time believing this!" her voice had hardened, too. She didn't seem like she was still surprised. "It is completely illogical. First, you are dead. Second, it has been at least a sweep since you died. And that was in game! So..."

Terezi continued talking, but Karkat no longer heard her. His brain had stalled over one word. Dead. He was dead.

"I didn't die in game!" he shouted. Terezi looked down on him, mouth open. It seemed she had still been talking. Karkat clenched his hands into fists, all the anger from walking and searching the past few nights boiling over. "I was the only one who fucking lived in game! You all up and got your asses handed to you. Hell, half of it was you guys killing each other on the meteor! So don't tell me I'm dead, Terezi. I was more alive than you!"

Karkat glared at her as Terezi seemed to stop and think. The blade didn't lower again, however. He shifted on the books, keeping a wary eye on her. Something was wrong. More wrong than he had expected.

And it was pretty damn obvious the game had fucked him over.

"How did we all die?" Terezi's words were slow, calculated. her face had become unreadable.

"As I said, most of you got each other on the meteor. First-"

Terezi waved her free hand. "I know about the meteor. I meant everyone else's deaths! Kanaya, mine, Aradia, Gamzee-"

"Gamzee died on the meteor." Already, Karkat felt a weight in his gut. He shivered, feeling cold. "Kanaya had to kill him."

"No, you subdued him by shoosh paping him," Terezi stated. The weight got heavier. "Continue."

"Well you all died fighting Bec Noir or Jack Noir or whatever you wanna call him in the kids' session. Only John and I survived. Aradia got a heroic death."

She gave no response. Karkat's mind began to spin out of control. What had happened? The time he had taken rebuilding a home to go to had passed here, but everyone was already alive. And this wasn't his Terezi. The longer the silence, the more he knew it was true. This wasn't the girl he had been matesprits with.

"In my game, you and John both died in the fight against Lord English and the Batterwitch. We came back without you and figured it meant something. Everyone else came back. Just not you."

In her game. Not his. Again his thoughts took over. If he wasn't back in his own world, then what the hell had he and John been repairing? How was it they had died and then failed to come back, and then ended up... in the wrong place still. Karkat buried his face in his hands, taking deep, shuddering breaths. He wasn't going to cry. Not now.

"Karkat," Terezi's voice sounded a bit more sympathetic, but far from the tone he wanted to hear. "I think you're from a doomed-"

"Don't say it!"

"But you are! This is the world that came back and you were not a part of it, Karkat Vantas. There is no other way. You just happened to come back a little late, though I cannot say I know how you did it!"

Karkat glanced between his fingers to see that Terezi was pacing. Grinning. Of course she would be excited by this fucking hell that was his life. His body shook and the weight only got heavier. He felt cold and gross and he was still hungry.

"Somehow out of all the beta timelines, you have managed to struggle your way back to claim the place another you had! Don't you see? Or did that make you the Alpha Karkat all along, and you got stuck in a Beta timeline?"

The weapon forgotten, Terezi wandered through her hive. She picked up chalk to write on the walls, attempting to puzzle out the scenario he had given her. Karkat glanced to his side, and blinked when he remembered again John wasn't with him anymore. There was no one to chat with about it. Karkat tugged his knees to his chest.

Terezi's scratching filled his ears and he closed his eyes. His stupid mantra didn't hold much merit anymore. He had been gone for too long and he hadn't even come back to the right set of friends or the right world. He had no lusus, no hive, and no reward for his actions.

He was alive, sure, but it wasn't his life. And the last thing he had fucking thought he'd be doing would be stuffing his way into another life of his, where he didn't seem to belong anymore. He groaned, leaning his head back against the uncomfortable books. He no longer felt like moving.

The scratching stopped, and he cracked open an eye to see Terezi walk back over to him.

"You don't seem very happy to be alive!"

"This isn't my world," he spat.

Terezi shrugged. She probably didn't give two shits. Her life was fine and dandy. She hadn't spent the time placing pieces down after failing the game, or having to fight her friends, or-

"Go to sleep. In the evening we can contact our friends! I am certain they are going to be at the very least surprised you have returned," Terezi's voice was not an offer, but a command. She gestured towards her recooperacoon, and with bleary eyes Karkat nodded.

He stood slowly, the weight in his gut pressing down. It seemed like an eternity before he was lowering himself into the cool sopor, the feeling foreign to him now. He closed his eyes, the slime wet and a bit uncomfortable. He felt out of place. With his hands balled into fists, he muttered a few more curses, wiping angrily at his face when a few tears rolled down his cheeks. He was back. Why was he back in the wrong place?

There wasn't even John to sympathize with him. No one to reassure him that they were going through this too, or that he needed to man up and not feel like shit, or even just to laugh at him. This time around, he would have to adjust to hell on his own.


	40. Life

John drummed his fingers against his kneecap, eyes darting left and right. His room was much different now - he had gotten a few movie posters back, but everything still felt off. He had a new computer, a new bed, an entirely new wardrobe - he had outgrown almost everything he owned. He rubbed his palms on his jeans briefly, returning to drumming a beat out.

The two months he had spent here were mostly a blur. Police reports, neighbours, everyone was fascinated in the story of how a boy who went missing two years prior suddenly returned. Rumors floated around about kidnapping and it seemed the safest story. But John rarely talked to the news crews, and the hub had died down. It left a deep pit in his stomach to think about. The police were looking for a kidnapper who didn't exist.

And John was left with a world that wasn't his.

Dave and Rose had both changed their chumhandles, and Jade had been the only one he could contact. It became strikingly clear these were not the same people who died fighting Jack. Mostly when Jade asked how he came back from a heroic death.

He rubbed under his eyes. He yawned. John felt exhausted. He slept horribly most nights, kept up by the looming idea he was incapable of sleep. When he did rest he had nightmares, full of clocks and timers and killing his friends. He flopped back onto his bed, closing his eyes tightly. Maybe he could have a short nap.

The doorbell rang. With a sigh John sat up, checking the time. An hour early. Well, there had to be some timezone confusion after all. At least he was getting to see his friends in person. He hauled himself up, stretched, and rubbed his eyes again. He started off down the steps, taking them cautiously. Memories of the winding staircase filled his mind, and he shook his head.

The doorbell rang again moments before John swung the door open wide. Jade stood in front, looking older and certainly taller, her hair pulled into a high ponytail. John saw a brief glimpse of green before she threw her arms around his neck.

"John! You look awful!"

He glanced over her hair. Rose and Dave looked... off. Dave's jaw was squarer and his shoulders broader. Rose was still short and lean, though her face had changed a bit as well from what he remembered. He knew it had been two years, but the friends the game had made were all off as well. He fidgeted. Jade let go.

In turn they each hugged him, though Rose and Dave's were briefer. He escorted them inside in silence, and they sat around the couch, bags and shoes left in the doorway. The living room was practically devoid of clowns by now, and it still felt empty to John. Having his house so different made him squirm. It didn't feel right. Nothing felt right.

He drummed his fingers on his knee, dispelling the silence ever so slightly. The weight of the situation hung heavily in the air - John had been gone for over two years rebuilding the world. Their John had died in the final fight. He didn't fit and everyone knew it.

"It is nice to have you back," Rose began. She shifted a bit. John knew what was coming. He drummed his fingers. "I understand this is a bit of a strange situation, one that we are all aware of."

"Yeah, you all assumed I was dead," John couldn't keep the edge from his voice.

"Dude, you up and died in game and didn't come back when the rest of us did," Dave cut in. It was the first time he had spoken, and his voice was much lower. John watched him take off his shades, clean them, and put them on again. "I don't think you can say we should've expected this."

John gave a slow nod. Rose and Jade exchanged a look, and John frowned. He didn't know what it meant. He missed Karkat's familiar movements, his twitches and looks. He could read those. The way Jade smoothed her shirt, the way Rose shifted - it was all weird. This wasn't how he knew his friends at all. It wasn't how he knew anyone anymore.

"John, are you alright?" Rose's voice broke into his thoughts. "You seem rather withdrawn. I know this is a bit of an emotional time for us, but did we upset you?"

More looks he didn't understand. Since when had they had a secret language? Had they gotten together in the time he had been gone? John rubbed his palms against his pants and stood.

"I just... I need a moment alone. This is a bit much."

John stood, despite Jade's protest, and ran up the stairs. He slammed and locked the washroom door behind him, taking deep, gasping breaths. Images of dead bodies danced before his eyes and he shut them, sinking to the ground. No, he could do this. It wasn't his friends or his world or his life but he was here.

"Don't let the game win," he spat, tugging his knees tight against his chest. "The game already won."

He took deep, shuddering breaths. He rubbed his arms. Thoughts swirled in his mind, numbers and dead friends and tricks. This had to be another trick. One day, they'd all snap and kill him. And he'd go back to the room with Karkat.

Karkat, who he hadn't spoken to in two months. Who he might never speak to again. He kept trying, kept pestering the name, growing more worried by the day. Maybe the trolls were gone for good. But the handle was real, so there was a chance. He'd just have to wait for a reply.

A knock at the bathroom door.

"John? Are you okay? Please come back out." Jade's voice wavered through the door. "I know it's weird for you but we haven't seen you in ages and it's weird for us too! Please. We've really missed you."

John unfolded himself, looking at himself briefly in the mirror. He rubbed the dark circles under his eyes, fixed his bangs, and sighed.

He opened the door. Jade looked up at him, offering a faint smile that he tried to return. She took his hand, dragging him back down the steps. He kept his eyes closed on them until he reached the bottom. Rose and Dave were standing, though Dave sat back down when he noticed John and Jade.

Rose gave a small smile. "Welcome back."

John sat down without acknowledging her. Jade sat on his side, sliding an arm around his. Dave sat straight backed, but John knew he was watching them both. Rose hovered by the edge, eventually sitting on the arm of the couch. John drummed his fingers. He glanced around again. A pit was forming in the bottom of his gut.

"We can make this work," Jade insisted. "C'mon. We'll tell you more about the past two years! I know we've said some stuff online but it's hardly enough."

John nodded. "Sure."

Jade launched into a story, which John promptly tuned out. Rose and Dave would interject here and there, and John gave a few nods to indicate he was paying attention - which he wasn't. He kept his eyes focused on the window, looking out at the sky. Two months. And everything still felt so wrong. This wasn't his house or his world, and he had just taken over another John's life and friends.

Friends he didn't really know anymore. Friends who had changed over the time he had been gone. Or maybe they hadn't. Maybe he had just changed.

His eyes skimmed the clouds as best he could, flicking to the ceiling. The timer might come back. He felt on edge again, twitching, the pit in his stomach getting tighter and heavier. He calmed his breathing, trying to listen in again. He yawned.

"I'm going to school now, online," Jade was saying, smiling. "Doing highschool! It's really fun, I never knew school could be fun!"

The game's laugh echoed in the back of his mind. He closed his eyes, feeling Jade stop her story to squeeze his arm. She didn't understand. They never had to panic and guess like he had. As the talking resumed, the pit sank deeper and deeper within him, until he was quite certain it was never going to leave. He stared at the sky and tried his best to listen to the stories of his new friends.


	41. Epilogue  Winner

Karkat twisted his hands together. The sun was just setting through the narrowed slits of Sollux's blinds. Karkat hadn't been able to sleep, and had hauled himself out of the recooperacoon that he'd been given - under protest, but it was somewhere to rest. He'd been hopping between his friends' hives for a bit, since there was no way he could rebuild his own. He'd been damn lucky his lusus was still alive, hiding out at Gamzee's, otherwise he would've been culled a sweep before. As it stood, he was relatively safe.

Feferi was in power, which was good in one sense. He wasn't going to be culled for his blood. But that didn't mean anyone else liked him much. So it was still darting between trees to travel, hiding his eyes. It was fucking shit, but it was better than being dead.

He stared down at his hands, trying to keep himself from fidgeting. He was acting like a fucking wiggler, some kind of nervous ass shithead who couldn't calm down cause he was getting his favourite meal. But this was a bit bigger than food or holidays or that shit. It was all about what Sollux was finally going to launch. What his stupid coding had finally made.

If all went well, they were going to get to contact the kids again.

Karkat's hopes were low. Considering how everything else had gone wrong, he wasn't sure it was going to work. Hell, they'd thought it impossible except when Karkat happened to get a single message from John. And it had to have been his John. The words blazed in the back of his mind, over and over. The stupid blue font.

"We didn't win, did we?" Karkat muttered. Five fucking words. That's all it took to get Sollux coding. To give Karkat sleepless nights and fucking awful ideas. What if they never made contact? What if they did all this and it wasn't even his John? His hands clenched into fists and he glanced back at the window. It was getting dark. Sollux would have to wake up soon and run the program.

It was painfully slow, watching the sky ebb to black, the moons rising slowly, as Sollux finally got his ass up. He stretched, giving a look around, and putting on his glasses before speaking.

"You're up early."

"Go fucking wash up and get your ass in gear," Karkat growled. Sollux gave a laugh, but did climb out of his recooperacoon To Karkat, he moved like a snail. A fucking salted snail. A dead snail. He drummed his fingers against the wall, paced the room, and scowled deeply.

The program wasn't just for him - there's no way Sollux liked him that much. But it did seem the others missed those bratty kids as well. Karkat didn't remember them well aside from John - only as spectres needing to be killed and whatever leftover nuggets he had gleaned from John's rambles. Jade had been pretty okay to talk to, he thought, but fuck if he didn't want to speak to John. Only god damn person in two universes who understood him.

He had tried to explain what happened to the others. None of them really got how hard it had been. How stressful. How many fucking times he'd killed them and how relieving it was that they were all safe. How shit it was that they weren't the friends he knew. but after a sweep he had gotten used to some of their new quirks. Dealing with Terezi had been awkward, but he'd had to get over it. She hadn't committed, but she hadn't said no.

Karkat shook his head. That was the last thing he needed to think about. He was like, minutes away from getting to contact John. Maybe. Low hopes meant he wouldn't be disappointed. Low hopes meant he was expecting whatever the world threw at him next. The game had caught him off guard with this timeline bullcrap, but he wasn't gonna have it happen now that he was free.

Sollux finally walked back into the room. He sat down at his husktop, in front of the honeycomb harddrives Karkat had been trying to avoid. He picked his way over, careful to avoid stepping on anything.

"So, excited?" Sollux asked.

"Not really. It's probably going to go awfully wrong anyway," Karkat replied.

"You know I think you're more optimistic than the old Karkat."

"If you can't get the program to run, quit stalling and admit it."

Sollux cracked his knuckles, punching some keys down. Karkat watched carefully, but he didn't get the code. It had been a while. A small chat window opened on the screen. Sollux clicked a few things, and Karkat's handle appeared on the top bar.

"All yours," Sollux said, sliding out of the chair. Karkat sat down quickly. running a hand over the keyboard before beginning to type.

- Proxy Server -  
>carcinoGeneticist began trolling ectoBiologist<p>

CG: JOHN?

CG: YOU BETTER ANSWER AFTER ALL THIS. WE WENT THROUGH FUCKING EARTH HELL AGAIN TO GET IN CONTACT.

CG: HEY. IT'S YOUR GOD SPEAKING, DOUCHE NUTS.

Karkat glanced over his shoulder, but Sollux was already making his way out the door. Probably for privacy. How was Karkat supposed to know if this was working?

CG: I'LL JUST SEND YOU MESSAGES UNTIL YOU REPLY.

CG: YOU KNOW THAT I CAN'T SEE YOU THIS TIME, MEANING THE TIMING OF MY MESSAGES CAN'T CORESPOND TO A TIME I AM CERTAIN YOUR BONY ASS IS SAT SNUG BEFORE YOUR MONITOR.

CG: YOU'RE GONNA HAVE TO WORK WITH ME. BY REPLYING.

CG: AND BY BEING THE RIGHT JOHN. I DON'T WANTSOME OTHER WORLD'S JOHN. I WANT THE IDIOT WHO FELL OF A STAIRCASE AND DIED AND COULDN'T DRAW. ALSO WHO PLACED LIKE EIGHT BILLION PIECES DOWN.

CG: ANY OTHER JOHN IS PROBABLY A BIGGER INTOLERANCE THAN YOU.

Shit. Of course it wasn't going to go through. John couldn't see a message from another universe. It would be ridiculous to think there was some great Internet connection out there, that they had landed in a universe where cross space chatting was possible beyond the reaches of the troll Empire. The game had fucked them over. It had-

EB: oh my god. karkat?

EB: i've been sending messages forever and you never replied. holy fuck.

CG: YEAH WELL, MAYBE LEARN TO CODE. YOU STUPID FUCK.

A flicker of hope formed in the troll's chest.

CG: IT IS YOU, RIGHT?

EB: yeah. it's me.

EB: i missed you.

Karkat cracked a small smile. Maybe the game had made a mistake after all.

CG: SO, DOUCHE. TELL ME WHAT YOU'VE BEEN UP TO WITHOUT ME.


End file.
